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Rabat – Despite facing a global outcry over its migration management policy, Algeria’s regime continues to abandon tens of thousands of irregular migrants.
New data from Nigerien NGO Alarme Phone Sahara shows that Algerian authorities expelled not less than 31,404 migrants to Niger in 2024.
In a report on Monday, the NGO condemned the “fatal” and “violent” approach that the Algerian authorities use against the migrants, including women and minors.
AFP and a group of internationals picked up the NGO’s appeal, reporting that the number of expulsions exceeds all documented numbers from previous years. In 2023, 26,031 expulsion cases were recorded in the North African country.
Between January and August 2024, Algeria expelled a record number of 20,000 migrants in just eight months.
For the NGO, the “worst-case scenario [is] being fatal consequences against the migrants, who also face exclusions” under “brutal conditions.”
In September last year, AFP interviewed the communications officer of the NGO Moctar Dan Yaye, who said migrants faced crackdowns and raids at their homes, workplaces, or the Tunisian borders.
During these muscular crackdowns, the migrants either face arrest or they are packed in southern Algeria before being transported in trucks to Niger.
Earlier this year, on January 1, about 1,770 Nigerien migrants were also expelled from Libya.
But given the numbers and the bestiality of its methods, the Algerian regime continues to be among the countries facing the most appeals and protests over their mistreatment and hostility toward sub-Saharan migrants.
In April last year, Nigerien authorities reportedly summoned the Algerian ambassador in Niamey to “protest” against the “violent nature of the repatriation and expulsion operations,” AFP reported.
In June of the same year, UN bodies acknowledged Algeria’s regime involvement in mass expulsions targeting migrants.
Back then, the UN organizations said the country forcibly pushed over 9,000 migrants across the border into Niger resulting in a “Critical humanitarian situation.”
In 2018, Algeria also abandoned over 13,000 migrants – including pregnant women and children – in a remote desert 15 kilometers from the Nigerien border.
It also forcibly pushed back dozens of Syrian refugees to Niger, leaving them stranded in remote desert areas, according to several reports – including Syria TV.
