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PARIS – The deadly expulsions of Algerian migrants in the Sahara desert are virtually halted after widespread condemnation and the brutal dismissal of two senior security officials.
Expulsions to the desert borders that Algeria shares with Niger and Mali The Associated Press reported less than three weeks ago that more than 13,000 people, including women and children children, had been deposited in this dangerous region since May 2017, according to officials of the International Organization for Migration of the UN.
Before the PA left for Algeria to comment and publish the report on June 26, the North African nation was throwing hundreds of migrants by the hundreds almost every week into the ruthless desert, sometimes to the end. their death
. repeated requests from the AP for comments on the expulsions
The European Union also declined 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 AP that mbad detentions continued, but now dozens of pregnant women are being stored in overcrowded jails. The worker asked for anonymity to avoid retaliation by 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 AP report in June, the Algerian authorities invited local media to attend such a deportation tour to prove that they had been committed with humanity.
Since the AP report, the Algerian security forces have fallen into disarray with the head of the gendarmerie. Chief of National Security both be forced from their work. It is unclear why the men were fired, but both were linked to the evictions of migrants in the desert as well as to an unrelated corruption scandal involving the seizure of more than 1,550 pounds of cocaine from one country. cargo in May.
Few public statements, while Algeria insisted that migrants are 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 bring people together 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. Thanks to a heat that reaches more than 122 degrees in the summer, Algerian gendarmes armed with rifles ensured that they did not turn 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 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 been discussing desert evictions with Algerian government officials in recent months, but the EU has nevertheless 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. – (AP)
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