Illegal immigration plagues Algeria

24/08/2005

Algerian authorities face a large problem, dealing with illegal immigrants from all over Africa passing through the county.

By Kaci Racelma for Magharebia in Algiers (24/08/05)

For a long time, people have been forced to flee their homes for better places because of starvation, dire poverty and war. Migration, which knows no geographical or judicial border, may be one of the central issues of the new century. Clandestine immigration is now a difficult problem that developing nations must confront.

Crossing Algerian territory is part of the dangerous journey to Europe, where migrants hope to find a better life. Yet authorities have yet to come up with an adequate solution. The problem fluctuates in severity with the number of unemployed people living in poverty and misery in African countries. Simple geography makes Algeria a main passage point.

In the first six months of this year, the Algerian national gendarmerie detained 3,234 illegal immigrants, with legal action being taken against 2,244 of them.

At the beginning of April, Algerian security services arrested 469 clandestine immigrants and brought them before courts for a variety of offences. The gendarmerie accused 387 people of smuggling an assortment of goods such as cigarettes, alcohol, gas, oil, livestock and food. Algerian authorities claim smuggling is up 9.6 per cent in 2005, in comparison to prior years.

A different kind of immigration problem occurred on 25 February, when 36 refugees in a rubber dinghy were shipwrecked on their way Europe. The Algerian Coast Guard in the western Beni Saf region had to rescue them.

Complicating the situation is the refusal of neighbouring countries to co-operate in finding an appropriate solution to illegal immigration. Algiers typically has to assume the financial burden of deporting detained people to their country of origin.

Though Algerian authorities have met often about the problem, illegal immigration still has substantial economic and political repercussions.

AFP: A 2004 Algiers forum of North African and southern European nations could not solve the illegal immigration problem