AN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION activist in Tunisia was arrested in a money-laundering investigation this week as the dangerous conditions facing migrants and their advocates worsen.

Saadia Mosbah, who is black, was taken into custody and her home was searched as part of a probe into the funding of the Mnemty association she runs.

She was detained after she posted on social media condemning the racism she faced from people denouncing her for helping sub-Saharan African migrants, said Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights president Bassem Trifi.

Her arrest was the latest reflection of the problems facing migrants in Tunisia as authorities, at the behest of the European Union, increase efforts to police the shoreline where many embark on boats hoping to reach Europe.

In a national security council meeting focused on irregular migration, Tunisian President Kais Saied said on Tuesday that associations receiving substantial foreign funds were “traitors and agents,” and shouldn't supplant the state’s role in managing migration and fighting human trafficking.

Fewer people have made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea this year due to weather and beefed-up border security. But human rights groups caution that efforts to curb crossings haven’t protected the tens of thousands of migrants stuck in Tunisia.

More than 80 migrants were arrested in Tunis last week after clashes with the police as they cleared tents in the capital that were supposedly “disturbing the peace,” according to Tunisia’s Radio Mosaique.

Hundreds of people had camped near the headquarters of the UN refugee agency and International Organisation for Migration, often demanding the agencies repatriate them outside of Tunisia.

Police officers used heavy machinery to raze their tents and then bussed them outside of the city to “an unknown destination,” said Romdhane Ben Amor, a spokesman for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.

“Tunisia is deepening the crisis and promoting the idea that there is no solution,” Ben Amor told Radio Mosaique.

An estimated 244 people — most of them from outside Tunisia — have died or disappeared along the country’s Mediterranean coastline this year, including 24 whose bodies were found last week, the NGO said.