Algeria has turned back 20,000 migrants to Niger this year: NGO

An NGO called Alarme Phone Sahara, situated in Niamey, told AFP on Monday that Algeria has returned about 20,000 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa to neighboring Niger since January, frequently under “brutal conditions”.

Since 2014, Algeria, a crucial transit country for people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, has repeatedly thrown back irregular migrants, including women and children.

Alarm Phone According to its communications officer Moctar Dan Yaye, Sahara, which rescues migrants in the enormous desert that separates Algeria and Niger, counted 19,798 persons who were turned back between January and August.

According to a report released by the NGO in late August, migrants are frequently deported “under cruel conditions” and in the “worst cases, with deadly consequences.”

“Migrants get arrested during raids on where they live or work in cities, or at the Tunisian border, and are pooled in Tamanrasset (southern Algeria) before being driven in trucks towards Niger,” said Yaye.

Nigeriens are then transported overland to Assamaka, the first Nigerien village on the other side of the border, where they are handled by local authorities.

At “point zero,” a desert region that serves as the border between Algeria and Nigerien, other nationals are left behind.

According to Yaye, they are then compelled to trek in extremely hot conditions for 15 kilometers (nine miles) to reach Assamaka.

According to Yaye, after being registered by the Nigerien police in Assamaka, migrants are placed in temporary housing centers run by the UN and Italy, and then they are transferred to other centers in the northern region of Niger.

“We hear a lot of stories from migrants involving abuse, violence and confiscation of their belongings by Algerian forces,” he said.

The Algerian ambassador was called to Niamey in April by the junta that took control of Niger last year in an attempt to express disapproval of the “violent nature” of deportations and repatriation operations.

As Niamey’s ambassador, Algiers did the same, dismissing the accusations as “baseless”.

“Numerous people have been moving freely” on migratory routes “without fearing reprisals” as they did previously, the NGO reported, after Niger repealed a 2015 law that criminalized migrant trafficking in November.