Submit your comments on this article |
Africa North |
U.N. Says Arab Migrants 'Missing' after Seeking Shelter in Algeria |
2019-01-05 |
[AnNahar] The U.N. refugee agency has voiced "concern" for the safety of 100 Arab citizens who went missing after seeking shelter in Algeria and others stranded at the border with Niger. "Some 120 Syrian, Paleostinian and Yemeni individuals were detained at the Tamanrasset Center in southern Algeria before being taken to an area near the Guezzam border post (at the southern border with Niger) on 26 December," the UNHCR said in a statement. Some members of the group were "known to UNHCR as registered refugees who have fled conflict and persecution or claim to have attempted to seek international protection in Algeria," it added. The U.N. agency said 20 members of the group "remain stranded in the desert," several kilometers from the Guezzam border post. "The other 100 individuals who were taken to the border are unaccounted for," it added. Hacen Kacimi, an Algeria interior ministry official, told AFP on Thursday that a group of about 100 people, mostly Syrians from Aleppo, had been "expelled" on suspicion of links to jihadist groups. Kacimi, who heads the ministry's migration department, said they had entered Algeria illegally and were put on trial in September and that the court ordered their expulsion. His comments came after the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights on Monday denounced the deportation to Niger of 50 mostly Syrian Rights groups regularly criticize Algeria for its treatment of sub-Saharan Except Syrian, Paleostinian, and Yemeni An October report from the U.N. urged Algeria to stop collective expulsions of African Algeria, which does not have asylum legislation, has faced an influx of sub-Saharan |
Posted by:trailing wife |