[DAWN] Algeria’s mass expulsions have picked up since October 2017, as the European Union
 ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
renewed pressure on North African countries to head off migrants colonists going north to Europe
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
via the Mediterranean Sea or the barrier fences with Spain. These migrants colonists from across sub-Saharan Africa ‐ Mali, the Gambia
... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain...
, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and more ‐ are part of the mass migration toward Europe, some fleeing violence, others just hoping to make a living.
A European Union spokesperson said the EU was aware of what Algeria was doing, but that "sovereign countries" can expel migrants colonists 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 in aid from Europe between 2014 and 2017.
Algeria provides no figures for the expulsions. But the number of people crossing on foot to Niger has been rising steadily since the International Organization for Migration (IOM) started counting in May 2017, when 135 people were dropped at the crossing, to as high as 2,888 in April 2018. In all, according to the IOM, a total of 11,276 men, women and kiddies survived the march.
At least another 2,500 were forced on a similar trek this year through the Sahara into neighboring Mali, with an unknown number succumbing along the way.
The migrants colonists the AP talked to described being rounded up hundreds at a time, crammed into open trucks headed southward for six to eight hours to what is known as Point Zero, then dropped in the desert and pointed in the direction of Niger. They are told to walk, sometimes at gunpoint. In early June, 217 men, women and kiddies were dropped well before reaching Point Zero, fully 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the nearest source of water, according to the IOM.
Within seconds of setting foot on the sand, the heat pierces even the thickest shoes. Sweat dries upon the first touch of air, providing little relief from the beating sun overhead. Each inhalation is like breathing in an oven.
But there is no turning back.
"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
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
Kande said nearly a dozen people simply gave up, collapsing in the sand. His group of 1,000 got lost and wandered from 8 am until 7 pm, he said. He never saw the missing people again. The word he returned to, over and over, was "suffering".
Kande said the Algerian police stole everything he had earned when he was first detained ‐ 40,000 dinars ($340) and a Samsung cellphone.
"They tossed us into the desert, without our telephones, without money. I couldn’t even describe it to you," he said, still livid at the memory.
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