All African refugees to be deported from Algeria before January
Photo: Echorouk
Algerian authorities decided, on Wednesday, to accelerate the deportation of all Africans and illegal immigrants who are living in shelters, before January,1, 2016, after the humanitarian catastrophe in the center for sheltering the Africans in Ouergla (southern Algeria), and which left 18 dead and about 60 wounded.
Health, Population and Hospital Reform, Abdelmalek Boudiaf, told Echorouk, on Wednesday, that the decision to deport all African illegal immigrants came to prevent incidents of additional mass death, along the lines with what happened in the accommodation center in Ouergla (southern Algeria), and the deaths of 11 illegal immigrants in a traffic accident that occurred in Ghardaia (southern Algeria), during the deportation of illegal immigrants to Tamanrasset (southern Algeria).
“Algerian government did not use at all the power politics to force the refugees to stay in the centers that are designated to them, given the nature and style of life of Africans, as they used to move constantly to different places, but the public authorities are working constantly to sensitize them about the dangers of their presence in the streets and overnight in the open and exposure to the risk of accidents and diseases due to the cold winter.
Abdelmalek Boudiaf, who visited the incident’s site with the Interior and Local Communities Minister, Noureddine Badaoui, by order of the President of the Republic, added that all the injured were ensured, and among them 60 wounded, of whom 55 are hospitalized, while the rest five others remain under medical supervision, because of the injury burns of varying dangers.
“A criminal investigation into the incident opened, and experts are currently searching in forensic evidence and scientific police to collect the remains in order to analyze them, and the results will be after two days at the most.”
In the context of deportation of African migrants, and in the framework of the negotiations, Algeria signed bilateral agreements with five African countries to deport illegal immigrants to their home countries, after entering the country illegally and deploying them in several areas of the country, and it comes to Mali, Cameroon, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.