One Gendarme on guard duty for each tourist in the Algerian Sahara

The Defense Ministry has issued firm guidelines whereby foreign tourists should be duly accompanied by a security escort during all their movements between touristic sites in the Algerian Deep South.

This has brought about the displeasure of the local tour operators which have witnessed of late a steady slump in the number of foreign tourists intent on visiting the Algerian Deep South for security reasons.

Journalists of Echorouk who were among a group of Southern-bound tourists were prevented from going deeper into the Sahara and were only allowed by their Gendarmerie escorts to visit places not far from established communities and main roads as part of a beefed-up security scheme.

This tight security apparatus deployed all around the visiting foreign tourists there has annoyed them and led them to assert that the security situation in Algeria is in fact still “precarious”, as they put it in statements to our reporters on the spot.

During their trip starting from M’sila to Bechar province after crossing Boussaâda, Biskra, Taghit and Beni Abbes, the baffled foreign tourists were subjected during all their movements to tight security measures under the watchful eye of ubiquitous Gendarmerie escort units on board their four-wheel drive vehicles.

In a reaction, representatives of hard-hit local tourist agencies have expressed dismay at such an all-out security scheme, saying it drastically hampers the free movement of foreign tourists eager to visit the splendiferous and renowned sites located in the Algerian Deep South, adding that such restrictive measures were exaggerated and didn’t serve Algerian tourist activities, as they put it.