Algeria stops forcing migrants to the Sahara after the outrage

PARIS (AP) – The deadly expulsions of migrants in Algeria in the Sahara desert have almost stopped Expulsions to the desert borders that the # Algeria shares with Niger and Mali have virtually stopped since the Associated Press reported less than three weeks ago that more than 13,000 people, including women and men, have been sentenced. According to officials of the International Organization for Migration of the UN, children have been dumped in this dangerous and dangerous region since May 2017. Before the AP leaves for Algeria to comment and publish the report The North African Nation was driving hundreds of migrants a week into the ruthless desert, sometimes until their death.

Algeria refused repeated requests from the AP for comments on the expulsions

. to comment. The evictions took place as Europe pressured the North African governments to prevent them from crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

A humanitarian worker with contacts in Algeria told the PA that mbad detentions are continuing, but now dozens of pregnant women are being stored in overcrowded jails. The worker requested anonymity to avoid reprisals from the Algerian government.

Algeria also continues to deport migrants from neighboring Niger, with whom it has concluded an expulsion agreement since 2015. But while migrants from other sub-Saharan countries have been abandoned in the desert secretly and forced to walk for miles under the hot sun, Nigerians have long been driven to the border by convoys. After the PA report in June, Algerian authorities invited local media to attend such deportation to prove that they had been committed with humanity.

Since the AP report, the Algerian security forces have fallen into disarray with the chief of the gendarmerie. Chief of National Security both be forced from their work. It is not known why the men were fired, but both were linked to the expulsions of migrants in the desert as well as to a corruption scandal unrelated to the seizure of more than 700 kilograms (1,550 pounds) of cocaine. A cargo ship in May. 19659003] In its few public statements, Algeria insisted that migrants be treated appropriately, but the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the evictions in the desert. Two days after the AP report, Human Rights Watch also released an investigation into forced desert marches.

"Algeria has the power to control its borders, but that does not mean it can rally people according to the color of their" Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Migrants filmed videos of themselves fan across the desert, stumbling. With heat reaching more than 50 degrees Centigrade (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer, Algerian gendarmes armed with guns have badured that they would not go back. Of the more than two dozen migrants interviewed by AP journalists in Niger, almost all reported seeing dead during the forced march, which sometimes lasted several days.

Even before the AP report, the conditions of migrants in the Sahara desert open a secret among humanitarian workers as well as governments in Africa and Europe. "We can not accept that African countries are abusing Africans, even if they enter the country illegally," said AU Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat. , said this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

EU officials said they have discussed desert evictions with Algerian government officials in recent months, but the EU has nonetheless decided that Algeria would be the only one in the country. one of the few establish centers to sort economic migrants from asylum seekers who flee for their lives. Algeria refused the dubious honor, as did several other countries.

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Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed.