Illegal migrants in Algeria

[Al-khiyal]

During the last six years the Algerian justice has put more than 9,000 illegal migrants in prisons out of 35,000 arrested during the same period.

The illegal migrants come from 55 states, mainly the African Sahel countries, some Maghreban states then the Middle east, mainly Syria, according to national gendarmerie figures. Since the year 2000 to date, the Algerian authorities have expelled more than 32 thousand illegal migrants. When it comes to Sahel states, Niger is at the forefront in terms of illegal migrants' statistics, followed by Mali and Nigeria. As for Maghreban states Morocco is ranked the first, then Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania. Illegals coming from the Middle East mainly originate from Syria and Egypt.

According to experts, human trafficking networks activity is focused in Niger-Djanet-Libya-Italy, in addition to two other major roads namely Mali-Niger-Europe, especially Spain, and as for those who failed getting infiltrated through the Algerian borders they go through Mali-Mauritania-Tindouf-Morocco.

During our visit guided by the border guard fifth group's commander on the Algeria-Niger and Algeria-Libya borders, we discovered that death, hunger, thirst or being devoured by wild animals is common fate of illegal migrants.

According to the border guard fifth group's commander, 60 to 70-member groups of illegal migrants costs the government public finance department more than 53 million centimes in terms of food, health care, and transportation back to their own countries. During the last six years public finance department losses reached more than 3.2 billion centimes.

The border area in Tlemcen west of Algeria near Maghnia Wilaya is still the favourite place of African migrants dreaming about reaching the other bank of the Mediterranean. Yet the illegal migration is not limited to African-origin migrants but also Asians are competing with them recently, especially Hindis among whom at least 150 illegal migrants have been arrested.

The ways illegal migrants use to survive are different but most of them become professionals in theft and money fraud, as judiciary police services in Tlemcen arrested a network specialised in Algerian money fraud led by three people from Mali.

9,000 illegal migrants in Algerian prisons

9 000 immigrés clandestins dans les prisons algériennes

[Al-khiyal]

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian authorities arrested 35,000 illegal migrants from 55 African and Arab countries over the past six years and deported 32,000, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The independent newspaper El Khabar, citing police, did not indicate whether the arrests and deportations involved the same people but Algerian journalists said it was almost certainly the case. Police were not available to comment.

Most of those arrested or sent home were from Africa's Sahel region with 11,000 from Niger, 7,000 Malians and 1,616 Nigerians, the daily said. Other migrants came from nearby countries including 2,500 Moroccans, 543 Tunisians, 100 Libyans and 60 Mauritanians.

The total also included migrants from the Middle East and Asia with 1,600 Syrians, 150 Indians and 31 Egyptians.

The government spent some 30 million dinars ($420,000) on their repatriation and on medical treatment and food during their detention, the newspaper said.

Europe has urged North African countries to do more to stop the flow of illegal migrants trying to reach Europe via Italy and Spain, the two countries most migrants see as their preferred entry point to the continent.

Migrants who reach Algeria try to buy a place in small boats going to Spain or Italy.

More than 31,000 illegal immigrants reached Spain's Canary Islands last year, six times more than in 2005, and many others made their way to Italy and Malta. Many died on the journey.

The EU has said it expects new flows of illegal migrants this year when the weather improves.

Algeria holds, deports thousands of migrants - paper

[Al-khiyal]

TAMANRASSET, Algeria: These are the migrants Europe never sees: Africans stranded in the wastes of southern Algeria, stuck midpoint on long and treacherous journeys in search of a better life.

Deep in the Sahara desert, Tamanrasset teems with thousands of migrants who live amid rocks and rubble on the edge of the town and agonize with difficult choices: Should they admit defeat and suffer the shame of returning home empty-handed? Or should they try to find work — here in the desert where often there is none — to finance another attempt to carry on?

That so many would-be immigrants are stuck here in limbo is no accident. European governments who face voters hostile to immigration have been urging North African countries to act as the frontline against illegal immigration, encouraging them to stop migrants before they even come within sight of Europe's shores.

In Tamanrasset, Algerian police set about the task with gusto. Migrants are put into cages aboard trucks and dumped at a tent city at Tin Zaouatin, just across the border in neighboring Mali. Local aid workers say such transfers are made once a month on average, and sometimes several hundred people are deported.

"The Maghreb countries are becoming a bit of a buffer for the EU to stop these movements towards Europe," said Peter Van den Vaart, who retired last month as representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Algeria. With the EU scrambling to close its borders, he said, "the emphasis is on the repressive side."

An Algerian police spokesman did not return calls for this article.

In Tamanrasset up to 3,000 migrants, mainly West African, are thought to be in transit towards the north. One route takes them northwest into Morocco, from where they can attempt the perilous boat crossing to the Canary Islands. Others head east to Libya, where they hope to find work in a booming construction industry fueled by oil profits, or cross by sea to Malta or Sicily.

But some, buffeted by police and plagued by hunger and illness, say their best option is to turn back.

"I've been here a couple of years and there's nothing good I've achieved," said Eugene Combapuie, a 29-year-old from Liberia who fled a civil conflict in the West African country in 2002 and spent spells in Ivory Coast and Libya before arriving in Algeria.

"In the time I have wasted here in Algeria I could have achieved something somewhere else," he said, perched next to a makeshift shelter on Tamanrasset's disused periphery.

Instead, Combapuie said he had contracted tuberculosis in a prison in northern Algeria after police arrested him for not having papers.

Some fellow-migrants he met had hopes of getting to Europe, others were just trying to get by. But even those who had documents saying they were asylum seekers or refugees ran into trouble, he said. "Even if you have a paper the police tell you they don't read English or French — only Arabic, and at the end you find yourself locked up."

Emaciated by illness but completing a treatment program thanks to the help of a local doctor, he was hoping to head back to his country where the war had ended. "When I go back to Liberia things will be better, God willing," he said.

Other migrants, who decided to leave home due to lack of economic opportunities, feel they have little or nothing to go back to. Some of those deported to Tin Zaouatin return to Algeria as soon as they can afford the €30 jeep fare back across the long, sparsely patrolled border. Feissal Abdelaziz, who works in Tamanrasset for the International Committee for the Development of Peoples, an Italian NGO, spends part of his time trying to raise awareness about the risks of an onward journey.

"They say, 'yes, it's true, but give me something to do back home,'" he said.

As the population of Tamanrasset has grown to around 100,000 it has become home to a more settled community of migrants who look no further than oil-rich Algeria for work. At least 10,000 from neighboring Niger or Mali are thought to commute for months at a time to work in the informal economy, mainly in construction or small commerce.

Newer arrivals from West African countries farther south stand around in groups along a dried-up river bed waiting for work, hoping to fund the next leg of their journey.

Police often turn a blind eye.

But some illegal immigrants bring trouble, Abdelaziz said, dealing heroin and importing counterfeit dollars, one reason for police crackdowns that end in mass roundups and push fearful migrants to more distant shelters further from the town center.

Group deportations or repatriations have also been common in Morocco and Libya, the other two countries in the region most affected by migration, triggering protests by international human rights groups.

At two summits held between African and European countries last year in Rabat, Morocco, and Tripoli, Libya, closing statements stressed the need to protect migrants' rights and to tackle the poverty and violence that cause migration.

But Ali Bensaad, who teaches at the University of Provence in France, said the priority of European policy toward African migrants remains "to block them as far away from Europe as possible."

Bensaad said North African governments are cooperating. He cited a recent Tunisian law setting out prison terms for those offering help for migrants, and the creation of a thousand-strong Algerian police squad to tackle illegal immigration.

He also said North African countries have been heavy-handed and secretive.

"All the Maghreb countries including Algeria try to play it down so as not to appear affected by immigration because it's a reality that they do not want to take on, and they don't want to provide social and judicial responses," said Bensaad.

That leaves migrants in places like Tamanrasset living on the very edges of society.

Charles Macaulay, another Liberian squatting on the same patch of wasteland as Combapuie, had been aiming for Morocco until he heard stories about people drowning as they tried to cross from the Moroccan coast to the Canary Islands.

"Where people normally go to get to Europe there are a lot of risks. I don't want to take those risks," he said.

But like Combapuie, Macaulay, 25, saw little hope in sticking around in the desert.

"Here it's difficult to get food to eat, to get a job. There's lots of stress. It's difficult to go on living your life this way," he said, signaling to the meter-high stone shelters covered with sheeted plastic behind him. "See where we sleep, it's not conducive for a human being to live here."

Migrants' quest gets tougher as Europe closes doors

[Al-khiyal]

June 2, 2007 -- Several African illegal immigrants live in Maghnia (extreme western Algeria). They come from different countries and have been there for many years.

The most poplar names for African immigrants living in this area are “Li Camard” and “Amigo”, that mean friend. Maghnia’s inhabitants are friendly with these Africans.

It’s worth mentioning that African rush to the region started in the late 1990’s. Most of them come from Mali, Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Nigeria. They escaped from wars and tribal conflicts in their countries.

Usually, they leave their camps early in the morning looking for jobs and some stuff to build their barrack rooms. Then, they come back in the evening to their shelters, said an inhabitant of that area.

Echorouk’s reporter has met an African immigrant and asked to interview him and some of his fellows.

“You will make the situation worse here…it’s forbidden,” he shouted. Then he ordered the reporter to go away.

The reporter managed to convince the African immigrant who accepted to tell the reporter about his life.

“My name is Abdessalam. I came from Mali, two years ago. I have a diploma in economics. Here, we suffer from many problems especially malnutrition and bad weather in this region especially in winter. We are fed up and you can’t change anything. Even when I was in Morocco for 6 months we were maltreated and kicked out,” he said.

“Each time media and representatives of human rights and the International Red Cross come and visit us. I would have lived better in my country but sectarian conflicts pushed me to leave my town. I don’t want to go back because I would be killed at any time,” he added.

Another African beggar said his name was Jakwa Pawal, 22. He comes from a village named Maradi in Niger.

He said he begged money to survive. Every day, he gets 200 to 350 DA; sometimes more: 1000 DA.

The reporter asked the African man to help him in reaching the places where the African’s camps are located. He said their big boss could do that in return for 50 euro. He did not reveal more details because he suddenly left.

Next to cybercafés, many immigrants gather, of whom there carry their identity and residence cards with them. Some of them showed the reporter their passports to prove that they got into Algeria via visa.

Kamal is a young Algerian man who sells fruit and vegetables to the African immigrants. He often drives them to their camps.

Kamal accepted to accompany the reporter to the camps. Life there is very poor and simple. Some of these immigrants are almost naked. They put blue plastic bags on their heads to avoid rains and sunshine.

Others are good-looking and wear clean clothes. Kamal said those elegant Africans were the followers of the leader and the decision maker there.

Kamal added that African immigrants in Maghnia live in a tribal system although they are not in their countries.

“The leader separates them according to their nationalities and religions”, said Kamal.

Most of the African immigrants’ names are related with prophets, messengers and popular Muslim names. They say they are Muslim and pray as well as fast with Muslims during Ramadan.

Some Algerian inhabitants said the Africans pretended to be Muslim to get sympathy of people living in that town.

Agriculture dominates Maghnia, especially potatoes. Algerian men require to be paid 600 DA per day to work in the vegetable fields there. Thus, farmers started looking for cheap manpower. Many of them have become interested in exploiting illegal immigrants to work in their fields in return for 400 DA per day.

African manpower is well-known for its skills and strong muscles. Some of them work in workshops in return for food and water.

An African immigrant said their favoured and main food was rice. They buy big quantities of it because it’s cheap and easy to cook.

On the other hand, they told the reporter that they were afraid of rains. When it rains they start following some rituals and make talismans.

Additionally, their leader orders them to come back to camps before the sun sets; otherwise they would be driven out.

According to the same sources, the African immigrants from different nationalities appoint a new leader every two years after consultation. He has to be physically strong and know many things about the town and its suburbs. It is difficult to meet with him, only if he accepts.

Even in Maghnia there are sectarian and tribal conflicts. In 2005, Maghnia witnessed riots between Muslims and Christians from Mali and Niger. The National Gendarmerie services and policemen intervened. On that occasion more than 800 immigrants were deported.

Western Algeria: How African illegal immigrants live

[Al-khiyal]

Le nombre d’émigrés clandestins africains et arabes a dépassé, depuis 2001 à janvier 2007, les 30 000 émigrés, dont la plupart sont de nationalités africaines. Parmi les 30 000 clandestins, on a recensé 1683 femmes et 1300 mineurs, et 14 % de ces émigrés viennent de pays arabes, comme l’Egypte, la Syrie, la Tunisie, et l’Irak ainsi que du Pakistan.

Selon les études graphiques du rapport, le plus grand taux d’émigration clandestine de ces pays vers l’Algérie a été enregistré en 2005, avec plus de 6600 émigrés clandestins, et le plus faible taux a été enregistré en 2003, avec un peu plus de 1800 émigrés.

Concernant le phénomène de Harragas (émigrants clandestins) à travers mer, qui a connu cette année une augmentation effrayante, le rapport, comprenant une étude psychologique et sociale, a conclu que le phénomène s’est étendu et touche à présent les femmes et les mineurs, et mêmes des personnes dont l’âge dépasse 50 ans.

Le rapport a adopté une étude analytique du phénomène de Harragas durant le mois de janvier 2007 comme échantillon, car il a enregistré le plus grand nombre de tentatives à bord des « barques de la mort », avec 725 tentatives, et les pays européens viennent en tête des lieux qui attirent les émigrés clandestins, suivis de quelques pays arabes et asiatiques.
Le classement des Harragas par catégories, indique que parmi les clandestins arrêtés en janvier dernier, 62 % sont chômeurs, 6,2 % fonctionnaires, et 5,6 % commerçants.

30 000 émigrés clandestins submergent l’Algérie

National gendarmerie report on illegal migration

[Al-khiyal]

Lundi 9 Juillet 2007 -- La section de recherches du groupement de la gendarmerie d’Alger vient de mettre fin aux activités d’un réseau composé de 9 personnes, toutes de nationalité marocaine et spécialisé dans l’immigration irrégulière. L’enquête qui a duré un mois a été déclenchée suite à des informations faisant état de déplacements suspects de personnes étrangères dans un quartier des hauteurs de la capitale. Après recoupements, les éléments chargés de l’enquête ont pu arrêter A. M. (25 ans), A. M. (21 ans), M. M. (23 ans), H. O. (18 ans), N. A. (21 ans), K. A. (34 ans), S. A. (40 ans), L. T. (23 ans), ainsi que le cerveau du groupe S. F. (24 ans).

Ce dernier a été reconnu comme le recruteur des huit autres immigrés clandestins originaires de la ville de Fès (ouest du Maroc).

Résidant en location non déclarée, les mis en cause n’avaient aucun mal à trouver du travail chez les particuliers en tant qu’ouvriers spécialisés dans la décoration intérieure des villas, notamment en plaques de plâtre, faïence et carrelage. Cette main-d’œuvre qualifiée et à bon marché est d’ailleurs très demandée dans les villes proches de la frontière avec le Maroc.

Un facteur sans doute encourageant pour l’extension de cette activité vers le centre du pays donnant lieu du coup au développement de réseaux d’immigrés clandestins. Les mis en cause dans cette affaire ont été présentés avant-hier samedi devant la justice où huit d’entre eux ont été écroués, alors que le neuvième a été remis en liberté provisoire. Notons que notre pays constitue une plaque tournante et un pays de transit pour des milliers d’immigrés clandestins chaque année. En 2006, les services de la gendarmerie ont arrêté 6 178 personnes d’une vingtaine de nationalités dont 1 512 écrouées et 4 402 refoulées. Les Nigériens viennent en tête, suivis des Maliens et des Marocains.

Immigration clandestine : Un réseau marocain démantelé à Alger

[Al-khiyal]

243 illegal immigrants arrested in Algeria during last nine months