The number of nuclear tests carried out by France, under the pretext of scientific research, reached “17 explosions, in addition to other additional tests”, declared General Bouzid Boufrioua.
France must “assume its historical responsibilities” through the decontamination of the sites of the nuclear tests carried out in the Algerian Sahara and the compensation of the people suffering from pathologies resulting from these atomic tests, affirmed the chief of service of the combat engineers of the Command. land forces, General Bouzid Boufrioua.
“France must assume its historic responsibilities, especially after 122 States of the UN General Assembly ratified, on July 7, 2017, a new treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons” TIAN “, which is added to previous treaties ”, he stressed in an interview with the magazine El-Djeïch.
According to this official, “the principle of the ‘polluter pays’ was also introduced and officially recognized. This is the first time that the international community has asked the nuclear powers to rectify the mistakes of the past ”.
He specified, in this regard, that the number of nuclear tests carried out by France, under the pretext of scientific research, reached “17 explosions (4 on the surface at Reggane and 13 underground at In Ekker), in addition to others. additional tests ”.
The surface tests carried out at Reggane, he continued, “have caused pollution in a large part of southern Algeria”.
“Their effects have spread to neighboring African countries, while a number of underground tests have escaped control, which has caused the spread of fission products due to the explosion and the pollution of large areas”, he added.
“Huge highly radioactive waste”
Detailing the consequences of these tests, General Bouzid Boufrioua quotes “the immense, very radioactive and long-lived waste, some are buried underground and others are left in the open, not to mention the radiation spread over vast areas, causing a large number of victims among the local population and damage to the environment which unfortunately continues to this day ”.
Nevertheless, “in view of the demographic growth in the areas concerned and the risks due to radioactive pollution, it was the duty of the State, very committed to its citizens, to secure and protect the old sites of French nuclear tests. “.
The mission of “protecting and cleaning up these sites which were the scene of French nuclear tests in the desert of our country” was entrusted to the National People’s Army (ANP), he said, stressing that in this context, it has already been carried out in this context to the “deployment of a security training in the sites through the creation of two units of the combat engineer weapon of the land forces, a company in the region of Reggane, in the 3rd Military region, and a company in In Ekker, in the 6th RM, in charge of securing and protecting old nuclear test sites ”.
It was also carried out with the “marking and squaring of the borders of the sites”, “the reconnaissance and aerial surveillance of the polluted zones”, “the health security of the elements and medical assistance of the local population”, and the “periodic control and analysis. sources of water and closing of wells near polluted areas, ”he said.
“We can qualify these efforts as satisfactory, considering the results obtained on the ground through the application of the aforementioned measures, knowing that these areas were a kind of open dump for radioactive waste. Now they are now under full control, ”he argued.
“We have succeeded in eradicating the phenomenon linked to the random removal of radioactive waste and prevented citizens from approaching polluted areas, in addition to the continuous monitoring of the radioactive situation,” he added.
General Bouzid Boufrioua deplored, in this regard, “the absence of technical information on the nature of nuclear explosions and the polluted material buried”, qualifying the absence of data on these tests as “a major crime committed by colonial France “.
