New Procedures For Transferring Bodies Of Algerians Migrants

Algerian consulates and embassies abroad informed citizens residing in foreign countries that the transfer of the corpses of the deceased has become exclusive to the needy only who provide proof of their poor financial income.

Echorouk checked out notifications from Algerian consulates and embassies in Europe, especially along the lines of the General Consulate in Brussels and the Algerian Consulate in Bordeaux, France, that, according to the provisions of Article 165 of the Finance Law 2021, the responsibility for the expenses of the deceased community members abroad will be limited to only the needy whose families justified that they don’t have funds to allow their return to the homeland.

According to what was communicated to the citizens abroad by the diplomatic representations, every request that is ensured in this regard must be accompanied by documents that justify the financial status of the deceased or his/her family and that prove the impossibility of covering the costs.

Algerian consulates abroad, like the Brussels consulate in Belgium, indicated that any intrusion request must be sent to the Consul General before the launch of any procedure for transporting a dead body to the homeland, and any request submitted to the Consulate General will not be processed after the procedures for evacuation are initiated.

Several consulates called on the Algerian citizens to subscribe (register) in securing the transport of dead bodies with the competent institutions.

These measures reflect a kind of austerity and tightening of the belt more by the government towards a large group of the Algerian community because of the difficult economic circumstance, even though the law was approved in the supplementary finance law in 2020, which is an economic circumstance that is more difficult than the current given that the country’s main resource is oil which has recovered by more than $ 15 a barrel compared to the period in which the law was passed, ie June 2020.

Previously, representatives of the community abroad, in particular, called on the government to adopt an insurance system through the consular card, through the establishment of a special fund, and when the Algerians abroad renewed their consular card, they pay an amount that would be valid insurance for the entire period of validity of the consular card.

These measures will have repercussions, in particular, on illegal immigrants who die abroad and who do not possess any residency or income documents, and whose corpses are usually transported to the homeland through charitable operations that are promoted on social platforms in particular.

A few days ago, an official document of the Prime Ministry revealed a frightening level of financial abundance in the public treasury, as the Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad asked members of the government team to tighten the belt further, given the downward trend of the level of financial abundance of the public treasury, and he insisted on urgent measures by the ministries to ensure the sustainability of public finance.