Naval forces beef up surveillance along Algerian coastline to curb illegal immigration

The Algerian naval forces have bolstered surveillance measures along the country's coastline in a bid to curb the ever-rising phenomenon of illegal immigration towards the northern shore of the Mediterranean basin.

•  Drastic measures including regular patrols along the coast notably in the eastern and western parts of the country have been reinforced by the Algerian naval forces to prevent harraga or illegal immigrants from crossing on board their makeshift boats towards the Italian and Spanish sea shores.
• 
  

•  
•  
• The first such illegal crossing was made by about 56 young Algerian harraga including two young women who succeeded in reaching the Italian shore of Sardinia way back in 2006.
• 
  
•  
•  
• The illegal immigration has taken alarming proportions since then with scores of harraga trying to reach the Italian and Spanish shores despite the high risks entailed by such dangerous sea crossings.
• 
  
•  
•  
• The Algerian security services have been striving through in-depth investigations to round up and bring to justice the chief smugglers who “wrench” a lot of money from the disillusioned Harraga before providing them   with makeshift boats used for the dangerous crossing towards the other side of the Mediterranean.

• Many of them have unfortunately perished at sea owing to bad weather conditions but, despite all this, this phenomenon is still going on and is spurred insidiously by the numerous smuggling networks operating on the sly along the eastern and western coasts of the country.