Algiers, Algeria (AP) – Algerian authorities have called over 1,800 migrants in recorded deportations earlier this month and left them on the Nigerian border, a Niger-based immigration rights group said Thursday.
Alarmmphone Sahara, who monitors the migration of the entire region, said the immigrants were bused to remote desert areas after being arrested in Algerian cities, known as “Zero Point”.
Abdou Aziz Chehou, the organization’s national coordinator, told the Associated Press on Thursday that 1,845 immigrants who have no legal status in Algeria were calculated to arrive in the Niger border town of Asamaka after a massive deportation on April 19.
He said this has driven the total number of deported immigrants arriving in Asamaka this month to more than 4,000.
Chehou added that the number does not include those who may have tried to return to Algeria.
The massive deportation was due to the intensification of tensions between Algeria and its southern neighbors, all now led by the military government, which expelled the elected government that had previously been consistent with Algiers. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdrew their ambassadors from Algeria over border security disputes.
For immigrants fleeing poverty, conflict or climate change, Algeria is the border crossing to Europe. Many people cross the vast extension of the Sahara desert before trying their dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. However, through lattice human rights records and limited human rights assistance, enhanced maritime patrols have stranded in an increasing number of transport countries.
In 2024, the Sahara siren recorded more than 30,000 migrants fired from Algeria. There are similar driving forces in neighboring Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.
Neither Algerian nor Nigerian officials have commented on the latest expulsion, which is rarely reported in Algerian Press. In the past, Nigerian authorities said such actions appeared to be a violation of the 2014 agreement that only allows Nigerian nationals to be deported at the border.
