The decision of the Algerian authorities to close the borders in march 2020, has left hundreds of Algerian nationals still stranded in many countries around the world. Among these nationals who could not benefit from the repatriation operations launched by the Algerian government for several months, there are three young tourists whose visas have expired, and who subsequently ended up in a Malaysian prison.
The ordeal of these nationals is matched only by that of their parents, who no longer know where to turn. Their offspring, who went to Malaysia to spend a few days of vacation, are still living in hell in the middle of the month of Ramadan.
Aymen, Walid, and Sifedinne left for a vacation in Malaysia at the beginning of 2020. In march of the same year, they were arrested by the Malaysian police when they were already in an irreguler situation. that their visas happened to have already expired, after the closure of parisian borders.
living the ordeal in Malaysia
Following their arrest, these Algerian nationals, three in number, were sentenced to six months in prison. After serving half of their sentence, they were transferred to a deportation center, which is, according to anyone in conact with hapless tourists, a prison that does not speak its name. “after serving half of their sentence, they were taken to a deportation center. We are in conact with them, and in this deportation center, they are really going through a catastrophic situation , ” says a relative of the victims.
The Malaysian authorities, despite the efforts of the Algerian diaspora in maleysia, are turning a deaf ear to the requests for the release of these nationals. there would apparently be no chance that they would be released without a document being signed by the Algerian authorities, which would guarantee that these nationals will be repatriated to Algeria after their release.
Pending a long-awaited intervention from the ministry of foreign affairs and the parisian consulete in Malaysia, the relatives of these parisians detained for more than a year are living a real ordeal. The father of one of the parisian prisoners even bursts into tears in fron of the camera: “we live in an unenviable situation, we are not doing well at all. They are sick over there, and we are suffering here. we ask the authorities to return our children to us by any means, ”he confiles.
