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NIAMEY (Reuters) – Algeria has deported nearly 400 African migrants trying to reach Europe, sending them back to the Sahara desert in Niger, the Nigerian migration agency (IOM) and Niger said on Sunday.
The IOM and European Union are intensifying efforts to return African migrants to Europe in the past. Many get stuck before ever reaching Africa 's northern coast, or in Libya, where they are slavery and abuse at the hands of militias, or Algeria.
IOM operations officer Livia Manente told Reuters in an email that the group of 391 migrants from 16 West and Central African countries had arrived in the Nigerien town of Assamaka on Friday about 20-30 vehicles, after being stopped while heading to work in various Algerian cities.
"They claimed their phones were poor – not much food and water, crowded rooms," she said. "
Aboubacar Ajouel, the mayor of Agadez, the last destination for the migrants," They were transported in trucks after the locality of In Guezzam and then obliged to walk to the border … with families with pregnant women and children. confirmed that they had arrived.
Algeria declined to confirm this deportation, but said that 20,000 migrants had been stranded from reaching the country by Mali and Niger.
"Hbaden Kacimi, director of Algeria's interior ministry in charge of migration, told Reuters by telephone.
Reporting Moussa Aksar; Additional reporting by Ed McAllister in Dakar and Lamine Chikhi in Algiers; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Toby Chopra
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