Algeria: Parents resort to escorting their school-children by highly-paid “vigilantes” for fear of specter of kidnapping

The specter of abductions of children by criminal and venal culprits has again come to the limelight over the past few weeks in several parts of Algeria with the flash-point being the recent kidnapping of a little boy in the eastern province of Bordj Bou Arreridj which added to the rising fear of parents for the life of their offsprings.

• The ill-fated abduction of this little innocent boy who was later found dead in the city of Bordj Bou Arreridj has spread like wildfire across several provinces of the country with parents aghast at this revolting and horrendous mishap deciding to take swift measures to protect their children on their way to school or when their happen to be playing outdoors in the neighborhood.
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• Numerous anxious parents, tied-up by their daily professional work, have systematically resorted to paying off trustful persons be they relatives, neighbours or family friends to escort their children on their way to school out of fear of the haunting nightmare of kidnappings.
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• These would-be “vigilantes” mostly jobless men or women are duly entrusted by working parents to  keep watch on their children and to closely accompany them to school twice or four times a day in exchange for a monthly- payment of 2.000 dinars or more.
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• This precautionary all-security approach adopted by many flabbergasted parents, anxious to provide the maximum protection for their children on the city streets  in order to ward off any harm happening to their offsprings, is currently becoming more and more prevalent among a large number of Algerian households.
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