[h=1]13,000 migrants 'abandoned in the Sahara' by Algeria: African nation is accused of forcing huge numbers into the desert at gunpoint without food or water and leaving them to die[/h]
- Algeria has been accused of abandoning 13,000 migrants in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months alone
- Claims that many are expelled without food or water in 48C heat and made to walk into the desert at gunpoint
- Many reported dead and International Organisation for Migration has warned of a looming 'catastrophe'
Algeria has denied mistreating migrants amid claims it has abandoned more than 13,000 in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months - including pregnant women and children.
The country has been accused of expelling the migrants without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under a blistering sun before being left to die.
Pictures show migrants coming over the horizon by the hundreds under temperatures of up to 48C. Officials from the International Organisation for Migration have warned of a looming 'catastrophe'.
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Algeria has denied mistreating migrants amid claims it has abandoned more than 13,000 in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months - including pregnant women and children. Migrants from Niger are pictured on the backs of trucks as they make the perilous journey towards Libya from Agadez on June 4
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Algeria has been accused of expelling the migrants without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under a blistering sun before being left to die. Migrants are pictured trying to hide from the sun as they huddle in the back of a truck heading for the Niger border after being expelled from Algeria
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Looming catastrophe: A migrant who was expelled from Algeria is restrained by others after he attempted to undress in the midst of a transit center in Arlit, Niger earlier this month
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Temperatures in the stretch of Sahara Desert climb to 48C and there are reports of many people dying or vanishing without trace. Pictured: The corpse of a goat in the sand outside the Assamaka border post in Niger's Tenere desert region
In Niger, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 10-mile no-man's-land to the border village of Assamaka, the Associated Press said.
Others are reported to have wandered for days before a UN rescue squad can find them.
The country has been accused of expelling the migrants without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under a blistering sun before being left to die.
Pictures show migrants coming over the horizon by the hundreds under temperatures of up to 48C. Officials from the International Organisation for Migration have warned of a looming 'catastrophe'.
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Algeria has denied mistreating migrants amid claims it has abandoned more than 13,000 in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months - including pregnant women and children. Migrants from Niger are pictured on the backs of trucks as they make the perilous journey towards Libya from Agadez on June 4
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Algeria has been accused of expelling the migrants without food or water and forcing them to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, under a blistering sun before being left to die. Migrants are pictured trying to hide from the sun as they huddle in the back of a truck heading for the Niger border after being expelled from Algeria
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Looming catastrophe: A migrant who was expelled from Algeria is restrained by others after he attempted to undress in the midst of a transit center in Arlit, Niger earlier this month
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Temperatures in the stretch of Sahara Desert climb to 48C and there are reports of many people dying or vanishing without trace. Pictured: The corpse of a goat in the sand outside the Assamaka border post in Niger's Tenere desert region
In Niger, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 10-mile no-man's-land to the border village of Assamaka, the Associated Press said.
Others are reported to have wandered for days before a UN rescue squad can find them.
Untold numbers die, with nearly all of the more than two dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press telling of people in their groups who simply vanished in the Sahara.
'Women were lying dead, men… Other people got missing in the desert because they didn't know the way,' said Janet Kamara, who was pregnant at the time. 'Everybody was just on their own.'
She recalled at least two nights in the open before her group was rescued, but said she lost track of time.
'I lost my son, my child,' said Ms Kamara, who is Liberian.
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A truck carrying goods and migrants drives through Niger's Tenere desert region of the south central Sahara on June 3. Once a well-worn roadway for tourists, the highway's 2,800 miles are now a favoured path for migrants heading north in the hope of a better life
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In Niger, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 10-mile no-man's-land to the border village of Assamaka, the Associated Press said
'Women were lying dead, men… Other people got missing in the desert because they didn't know the way,' said Janet Kamara, who was pregnant at the time. 'Everybody was just on their own.'
She recalled at least two nights in the open before her group was rescued, but said she lost track of time.
'I lost my son, my child,' said Ms Kamara, who is Liberian.
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A truck carrying goods and migrants drives through Niger's Tenere desert region of the south central Sahara on June 3. Once a well-worn roadway for tourists, the highway's 2,800 miles are now a favoured path for migrants heading north in the hope of a better life
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In Niger, where the majority head, the lucky ones limp across a desolate 10-mile no-man's-land to the border village of Assamaka, the Associated Press said
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Algeria's mass expulsions have picked up since October 2017, as the European Union renewed pressure on North African countries to head off migrants going north to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea or the barrier fences with Spain
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A European Union spokesman said the EU was aware of what Algeria was doing, but that 'sovereign countries' can expel migrants as long as they comply with international law. Pictured: Algerian guards carrying AK-47s load migrants onto trucks to drop them off at the Niger border
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Unlike Niger, Algeria takes none of the EU money intended to help with the migration crisis, although it did receive 111.3 million US dollars in aid from Europe between 2014 and 2017
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Algeria provides no figures for its involuntary expulsions, but the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been increasing since the International Organisation for Migration started counting in May 2017 to as high as 2,888 in April 2018
Another woman in her early twenties also went into labour and lost her baby, she said.
Algeria's mass expulsions have picked up since October 2017, as the European Union renewed pressure on North African countries to head off migrants going north to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea or the barrier fences with Spain.
A European Union spokesman said the EU was aware of what Algeria was doing, but that 'sovereign countries' can expel migrants as long as they comply with international law.
Unlike Niger, Algeria takes none of the EU money intended to help with the migration crisis, although it did receive 111.3 million US dollars in aid from Europe between 2014 and 2017.
Algeria provides no figures for its involuntary expulsions, but the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been increasing since the International Organisation for Migration started counting in May 2017 to as high as 2,888 in April 2018.
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Algeria has in the past denied criticism that it is committing rights abuses by abandoning migrants in the desert, calling the allegations a 'malicious campaign' intended to inflame neighbouring countries. Pictured: A car abandoned in the desert of the south central Sahara
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Janet Kamara, from Liberia, pictured at a transit center in Arlit, Niger, was expelled from Algeria, and left stranded in the Sahara while pregnant. She described how her baby was killed, women lay dead and others got lost in the desert because they did not know the way
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A smuggler counts his money as migrants climb into trucks to head north into Algeria at the Assamaka border post in northern Niger
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Isaac Solomon, 40, from Nigeria, waits for medical attention at the International Organization for Migration transit center in Arlit, Niger. Solomon was expelled from Algeria, and like thousands of others, was abandoned deep in the Sahara Desert without water and food, forcing him to walk under the blistering sun before being picked up by the International Organization for Migration
In all, according to the IOM, a total of 11,276 men, women and children survived the march.
At least another 2,500 were forced on a similar trek into neighbouring Mali, with an unknown number succumbing along the way.
The migrants AP talked to described being rounded up hundreds at a time, crammed into trucks for hours to what is known as Point Zero, then dropped in the desert and pointed towards Niger.
'There were people who couldn't take it. They sat down and we left them. They were suffering too much,' said Aliou Kande, an 18-year-old from Senegal.
Mr Kande said nearly a dozen people gave up, collapsing in the sand. His group of 1,000 wandered from 8am until 7pm, he said. He never saw the missing people again.
'They tossed us into the desert, without our telephones, without money,' he said.
The migrants' accounts are confirmed by videos collected by AP over months, which show hundreds of people stumbling away from lines of trucks and buses, spreading wider and wider through the desert.
Liberian Ju Dennis filmed his deportation with a phone he kept hidden. It shows people crammed on the floor of an open truck, trying to shade their bodies from the sun.
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The migrants have described being rounded up hundreds at a time, crammed into trucks for hours to what is known as Point Zero, then dropped in the desert and pointed towards Niger
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The Sahara is a swift killer that leaves little evidence behind. The International Organisation for Migration has estimated that for every migrant known to have died crossing the Mediterranean, as many as two are lost in the desert – potentially upwards of 30,000 people since 2014
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Ju Dennis, from Liberia, holds his phone with which he filmed his plight through the Sahara after being expelled from Algeria
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Sierra Leone migrants wait for repatriation in an International Organization for Migration center in Agadez, Niger after being expelled from Algeria
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Officials from the International Organisation for Migration have warned of a looming 'catastrophe'. Sierra Leone migrants are pictured waiting for repatriation at a centre in Agadez, Niger
'You're facing deportation in Algeria — there is no mercy,' he said. 'I want to expose them now… We are here, and we saw what they did. And we got proof.'
Algerian authorities refused to comment. But Algeria has in the past denied criticism that it is committing rights abuses by abandoning migrants in the desert, calling the allegations a 'malicious campaign' intended to inflame neighbouring countries.
The Sahara is a swift killer that leaves little evidence behind. The International Organisation for Migration has estimated that for every migrant known to have died crossing the Mediterranean, as many as two are lost in the desert – potentially upwards of 30,000 people since 2014.
The vast flow of migrants puts an enormous strain on all the points along the route.
'They come by the thousands. This time, the expulsions that I'm seeing, I've never seen anything like it,' said Alhoussan Adouwal, an IOM official who has taken up residence in Assamaka to send out the alert when a new group arrives.
He then tries to arrange rescue for those still in the desert.
'It's a catastrophe,' he said.
Most choose to leave by IOM bus for the town of Arlit, about six hours to the south through soft sand. And then on to Agadez, the Nigerien city that has been a crossroads for African trade and migration for generations.
Ultimately, they will return to their home countries on IOM-sponsored flights.
Even as these migrants move south, they cross paths with some who are making the trip north towards Algeria and Europe.
[h=2]Amber Heard, Bella Thorne, Lena Dunham and Joshua Jackson lead protests at a tent city in Texas where immigrant children have been separated from their parents[/h]
T
he stars were among nearly two dozen actors and activists to rally Sunday at the port of entry in Tornillo, Texas, in support of refugee children and families seeking asylum. They held signs that read 'End Family Separation', 'This Is About Humanity' and 'Keep Families Together'. Thousands of children and their families are currently being held in federal detention camps under the Trump Administration's 'no tolerance' immigration policy.
he stars were among nearly two dozen actors and activists to rally Sunday at the port of entry in Tornillo, Texas, in support of refugee children and families seeking asylum. They held signs that read 'End Family Separation', 'This Is About Humanity' and 'Keep Families Together'. Thousands of children and their families are currently being held in federal detention camps under the Trump Administration's 'no tolerance' immigration policy.
Where were all of these hypocrites in January of 2016 when the AP reported that, in 2014, Obama's HHS handed over dozens, if not hundreds, of "migrant children" to ***child traffickers*** posing as relatives? These liberals scream that they want to know where the children are, so where are those children? are they slaves? dead? being raped? Liberals don't care about those kids simply because they can't blame Trump for it. That is why liberals are shameless, pathetic hypocrites to their vile, empty, soulless cores.
