Borj le Bœuf: A Saharan Military Post and Political-Prison Camp in Tunisia

History

Borj le Bœuf is a former Saharan military post and political-prison camp in Tunisia, established by French authorities in 1916 during the French protectorate, the system through which France controlled Tunisia while formally retaining its state and institutions. Founded as the Saharan Post of Bir Kecira, it served an isolated military role in the southern desert.

From Bir Kecira to Borj le Bœuf

In 1922, the post was renamed Bordj Lebœuf in memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Henri Le Bœuf, who headed Tunisia’s Indigenous Affairs Office. He died of thirst after an aircraft carrying him and Second Lieutenant Joseph Genet de Chatenay was seriously damaged and forced to land during a military operation against resistance fighters near Nalut, on the Tripolitanian frontier. Le Bœuf’s body was found in January 1918, while Genet de Chatenay’s was recovered about a year later, several tens of kilometres from the wreckage.

Captain Camille Mathieu was closely connected with the post’s military administration. He joined the Saharan goum stationed at Borj le Bœuf in 1919. A goum was a locally recruited mounted or auxiliary unit serving under French colonial command. Mathieu took command in 1923 and remained there until 1937.

Colonial Exile and Nationalist Resistance

During the protectorate, the fort became a camp for Tunisian political prisoners. Its first recorded activist exile was Kazem Bouhafah, sent there under an order dated 3 September 1934. Muhieddine Kalibi arrived on 2 January 1935, followed by many other exiles on 2 April. They remained for approximately a year.

Habib Bourguiba was arrested on 3 September 1934 and exiled to southern Tunisia before being detained at Borj le Bœuf until 23 May 1936. Bourguiba was a leading Tunisian nationalist who later became the country’s first president. He was associated with the Neo-Destour, a nationalist movement founded on 2 March 1934. His detention gave the site a lasting place in the history of Tunisia’s independence movement.

After their release, former detainees organized sustained campaigns to close the camp. Although it was closed for a period, military authorities reopened it in January 1952 for 53 exiles. The camp closed again in early January 1953, while continuing to receive a limited number of people subjected to disciplinary sanctions. Political exiles were transferred from Borj le Bœuf to Tataouine in 1953.

Renaming After Independence

After Tunisian independence, the site was renamed Borj Bourguiba in memory of Bourguiba’s detention there. Its historical identity therefore combines its original function as an isolated colonial military post with its later role in political exile. Borj le Bœuf is associated both with colonial repression and with the perseverance of Tunisian nationalist resistance.

Remains

Borj le Bœuf is a military fortification in the Grand Erg Oriental of southern Tunisia, near the Bir Kecira well. The site lies approximately 40 to 50 kilometres south-west of Remada and about 60 kilometres from the Libyan border. Its physical role was that of an isolated Saharan post, later adapted for use as a political-prison camp. The available description identifies the fortification and its desert setting, while the camp’s historical function gives the surviving site its principal interpretive meaning.