Over 1,000 migrants, including women and children, were deported from Algeria to Niger over Easter weekend, InfoMigrants reports. According to a spokesperson for the NGO Alarme Phone Sahara (APS), the migrants were abandoned in the desert at a location known as “Point Zero,” 15 kilometers from the northern Nigerien town of Assamaka. APS said the deported migrants were not provided with food, water, or shelter.
According to APS, this is nothing new: An August 2024 report from APS says Algeria that year had deported over 20,000 migrants in this manner since January. “The Maghreb states … are practising mass arrests, pullbacks, pushbacks and mass deportations against people on the move on an increasing scale,” APS said.
Meanwhile, the country is in the middle of a diplomatic crisis over, among other issues, its refusal to allow Algerian nationals entry into their home country after being deported from France.
So while Algeria refuses to take responsibility for its own nationals abroad, it has no problem dumping others in the desert.
