UTV | COLOMBO – Algeria has abandoned more than 13,000 migrants in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months, expelling them without food or water and forcing them to walk for hours or even days.
They include pregnant women and children. The Associated Press interviewed over two dozen survivors of the deportations in Niger.
Nearly all said they saw fellow migrants collapse during the walk, where temperatures reach up to 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit). They never saw the missing migrants again.
The lucky make it within a few hours to the nearest village across borders in Niger and, more recently, Mali. But many wander for days.
Algeria denies mistreating the migrants.
But their accounts are confirmed by multiple videos collected by the AP showing hundreds of people stumbling into empty desert. (Courtesy – Arab News)
