Images sent to the Observers’ editorial team bear witness to a new wave of “refoulement” of migrants since the beginning of September in Algeria. Each time, those arrested are placed in detention, then transported by bus or truck to the border with Niger, in the middle of the desert. In our last program, Jacques (pseudonym), a Cameroonian living in Oran for several years, denounces these arrests.

In recent weeks, arrests of migrants have been observed in Oran but also in Tlemcen, Algiers, Blida, Boumerdès, Tipaza, Zeralda, Sétif and Annaba, as stated in a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report dated October 9. Migrants are apprehended at home, in the streets, or at their workplace.

HRW estimates that Algeria has thus expelled more than 3,400 migrants of at least 20 different nationalities to Niger, including 430 children and 240 women, since the beginning of September. According to the NGO, this brings the number of summary evictions to Niger to more than 16,000 in 2020, of which just over half concern Nigeriens.

Jacques explains in our show how the “repressions” are organized: 

The recent arrests took place around the end of September and the beginning of October. They [the police, editor’s note] break down the door, they take everyone, they put you in buses. Then, you are taken to the “refoulement” camp. The conditions there are unlivable. There are mice, water everywhere, it’s dirty. (…) And if there is no one to bring you back your papers to the “refoulement” camp, they will see you in the desert. Not all of these people belong to one nationality. There are Guineans, Malians, Senegalese, Cameroonians, Ivorians, Nigerians, Sierra Leoneans, Liberians. But, the direction of all these people is the desert.