According to local officials, AFP learnt Thursday that 847 migrants, the majority of whom are Nigeriens, have entered northern Niger after being turned away from Algeria.
“Regarding the situation of the returnees from Algeria, we have a total of 847 people including 40 women and 74 unaccompanied children. These people have already arrived in Agadez
The 74 unaccompanied children “are already being taken care of” by the services of the Ministry of Child Protection, it said.
A humanitarian source confirmed to AFP the arrival earlier this week in Niger of “some 800 migrants” after their expulsion by the Algerian authorities who “escorted them to the Nigerian border”.
She claimed that these people would have access to basic essentials and medical treatment.
According to the United Nations, Algeria has evicted tens of thousands of unauthorized migrants from West and Central Africa since 2014.
“I was with others (children) at the home of a lady to whom we paid every day what we earned begging. She told me that she sent this money to my mother every month,” Sahabi, a Nigerien child sent back to Agadez in June after being arrested by the police in Algiers where he was begging, told UNICEF.
While many of these migrants are primarily attempting to travel to Europe, some are attempting to survive in Algeria.
International and Algerian NGOs have frequently accused the Algiers government of arbitrarily detaining and deporting sub-Saharan Africans, at times abandoning them in the desert without food or water.
Algeria, which has no laws governing asylum, frequently refutes these charges and calls them “a vicious campaign.
According to the non-profit organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF), who reported 23,171 migrants in 2020, 27,208 in 2021, and 14,196 from January to May of 2022 alone, the number of migrants being ejected from Algeria has surged recently.
