From a distance, they look like some small dots in the sky. Gradually, the dots appear larger and one can comprehend their real structures in the desert. They are human beings – men, women, children – walking on sands. Sahara! Nature is ruthless in this part of the world where the temperature reaches 50 degrees Celsius during the day and falls below the freezing point in the night. The Algerian Army reportedly expelled the migrants without food or water and forced them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, in the intense Sahara heat 14 months ago. Still, many migrants are walking through the desert, as their primary destination is Assamakka – a small desert town in northern Niger at a main border crossing with Algeria. The migrants, who are dependent on the UN for food and water, have set up camps in Assamakka. After spending few days in those camps, the migrants resume their journey towards an unknown destination!

Who are these migrants?
They are basically poor people from Mali, Gambia, Liberia and other West African countries who have been trying hard to reach Europe in search for a better life. Many of them arrived in rich North African nations – like Algeria, Tunisia or Libya – mainly because of ongoing political turmoil in their countries. Algeria absorbs the maximum migratory pressure due to its geographical location, as Europe-bound West African migrants want to reach Spain, Portugal and Italy via Algerian ports.
This was going on for years and the scenario changed only in 2017. After thousands of migrants entered Europe, the European Union (EU) renewed pressure on North African countries to head off migrants going north to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. Algeria – which had been trying hard to stop the refugees from entering the country for long – followed the EU’s instruction and forced migrants to leave the country without paying respect to human rights. Asked to comment on this issue, a senior EU official said: “It’s a country’s own decision whether to provide shelter to refugees….”

How many refugees were expelled from Algeria?
In its latest report, the International Organisation for Migration (IMG) stated that 11,276 refugees survived the march through the desert and entered Niger in the last one year. The IMG further claimed that two-thirds of migrants failed to cross the desert. It means that more than 20,000 people lost their lives in the Sahara Desert in the last 14 months.
Only 20,000! The IMG is yet to confirm the number of death of unborn babies in this harsh environment. According to IMG officials, although the number of men is higher, there are many children and women who are trying to reach Niger at any cost. Many pregnant women lost their babies during the journey through Sahara, while others gave birth to stillborn babies.

Janet Kamara is one of them. In Assamakka, she told UN officials: “Women were lying dead, men… other people go missing in the desert because they don’t know the way.” Kamara, who was pregnant at the time, said: “Everybody was just on their own.” The Liberian added: “I lost my son, my child. Another woman in her early twenties also went into labour and lost her baby.”
Ju Dennis – a Liberian migrant – has secretly filmed his deportation with a phone. His video shows people crammed on the floor of an open truck, trying to shade their bodies from the sun. “You’re facing deportation in Algeria….there is no mercy. I want to expose them now… we are here and we saw what they did and we have proof,” insisted Dennis.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das