Algerian Interior Minister: security forces handled 3 human organs trade cases in less than 2 years

Algerian Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni Thursday said security forces had handled three child abduction cases for organs trade for the last two years. Two cases were recorded in 2007 and another one was handled, a week ago.

To a question in the Nation Council, Zerhouni replied that an Algerian has recently tried to kidnap a two-year-old girl on a border area with Morocco. “When arrested, he admitted that he sold children to a clinic in Ouadjda, Morocco.”

The Interior Minister’s statement shows that children’s organ trade gangs who work on Algerian Moroccan borders transfer the kidnapped children to private clinics in Ouadjda and other towns to exterminate their organs especially kidney and cornea.

Ongoing investigations do not exclude that those gangs work also in Spain.

Asked about measures to counter this kind of crimes, the minister said the Gendarmerie forces and the police set up groups of criminologists, doctors and psychologists to work on the topic and come up with proposals to be studied by the government.

He mentioned three cells in Algiers, Annaba (east of Algiers) and Oran (west of Algiers) belonging to the National Gendarmerie command. They are meant to sensitise schoolboys about that scourge.

“In view of positive results achieved by those cells, the National Gendarmerie command is working on establishing 10 other cells to cover all Algeria,” he said.