Ouargla: 24 Sub-Saharans injured in street clashes with local population

Violent disturbances jolted the town of Ouargla (southern Algeria) after the heinous crime perpetrated against a young man named, Azzedine Bensaid, aged 26, by a Nigerian migrant, aged 22, after an attempted burglary at the house of the neighbor of the victim, who died during his transfer to the local hospital Mohamed Boudiaf of Ouargla.

Indeed, the appalling crime, the first of its kind to occur in the region, touched off a lot of emotions, anger and dismay among the inhabitants of the neighborhood of Said Otba who mobilized to conduct a man-hunt against locally-based Sub-Saharans in retaliation.

Fortunately, the offender was arrested in a record time, two hours after committing his crime, by the local security forces at a distance of 12 km away from the scene of the crime.

But this arrest did not stop the acts of retaliation as 24 Africans were injured and transported by civil protection squads to the city hospital during clashes between residents of the neighborhood who wanted to burn down the local shelter of the sub-Saharans.

Faced with this adverse situation, local authorities plan to move the residents of this shelter of migrants of different African nationalities, numbering 545, located in the same neighborhood to another site in Ouargla, pending their transfer to the Tamanrasset reception center in preparation for their repatriation to their countries of origin.

Local authorities called on citizens to exercise wisdom and to trust the justice which will take its course to punish this criminal who has confessed to the crime after being confused by the traces of blood on his shoes and clothes and the objects of his theft found in his possession.