Since January, Algeria has pushed back nearly 20,000 African migrants, including women and children, to neighbouring Niger, we learned on Monday 1Ahem September Agence France-Presse to the local NGO Alarme Phone Sahara. This organization, which rescues migrants in the desert between Algeria and Niger, has identified “Exactly 19,798 people returned from January 2024 to August 2024”according to its communications manager Moctar Dan Yaye.
Since 2014, irregular migrants from Niger, but also from other African countries, including women and minors, have been periodically returned from Algeria, a transit point to Europe. These migrants are expelled “in brutal conditions” with “In the worst case, fatal consequences”Alarme Phone Sahara denounces in a report published at the end of August. “Migrants are arrested during raids in the city, in their homes, at their workplace or at the border with Tunisia and are grouped together in Tamanrasset. [sud algérien]before being transported by truck to Niger »says Moctar Dan Yaye.
Deported Nigeriens are transported to Assamakka, the first Nigerien town, where they are received by local authorities. But migrants from other African countries disembark at “point zero,” a desert area that marks the border between the two countries, and must walk 15 kilometers to reach Assamakka in extreme weather conditions, according to Moctar Dan Yaye.
“Many testimonies of abuse” and “violence”
After being registered by the Nigerien police in Assamakka, they are accommodated in UN and Italian transit centres and gradually transported to other centres in Arlit and Agadez, two major cities in northern Niger. “We have many testimonies of abuse, violence and confiscation of migrants’ property by Algerian forces”regrets the communications manager of Alarme Phone Sahara.
In April, the Nigerien military authorities in power for a year in Niamey summoned the Algerian ambassador to “protest” against “violent character” of these repatriation and return operations. In turn, Algiers summoned the Nigerien ambassador while judging “unfounded” accusations from the Nigerien authorities.
In November 2023, the Nigerien military regime repealed a 2015 law criminalizing migrant smuggling. “many people move freely” sure “the roads” of migration “without fear of reprisals” that they had incurred before, the association indicates in its report.
