Alarme Phone Sahara welcomes the Nigerien government's response to Algeria over the mass pushbacks in the desert towards Niger.
From 15 to 22 December 2023, an Alarme Phone Sahara (APS) mission was held in Assamaka, the village on the Niger-Algeria border where most of the transit traffic between Algeria and Niger takes place, but where the deportation convoys with thousands of people deported from Algeria to Niger also arrive. In 2023, at least 2,631 people were deported from Algeria to Niger via Assamaka - the highest figure in recent years.
On 25 November 2023, General Abdourahamane Tiani, the President of the "Conseil National pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (CNSP)", the body that has been running the government in Niger since the coup d'état on 26 July 2023, signed an order repealing the law 2015-036 on the "smuggling of migrants". All judgements handed down since the implementation of this law have been annulled with retroactive effect and all persons imprisoned based on this law have been released due to local sources from Niger. Alarme Phone Sahara (APS) and other civil society organisations from Niger welcome the abolition of this law criminalising migration.
Stranded in Niger, with no evacuation flights and no hope of help from the IOM or other institutions, Malian migrants left Arlit in northern Niger on foot on 30 October 2023.
17.10.2023: 20 migrants in distress rescued in northern Niger on the road between Dirkou and the Libyan border.
At least 5,012 people deported from Algeria to Niger from 26 July till 18 October 2023.
Urgent appeal from migrants who have been blocked at the border between Tunisia and Algeria in the Tebessa area since 05 October 2023. Tunisian forces had deported them to the border zone:
A video report about the precarious situation of migrants and refugees in Agadez, Niger, after July 26th military coup and atrocities many of them had to face when they were in Algeria. Published by Channel 4 News:
Alarme Phone Sahara was contacted by a Cameroonian migrant who has been trying for 6 years to cross the #Mediterranean to get to #Europe.
