We are a local NGO
We are a local NGO
Alarme Phone Sahara (APS) is a cooperation project between associations, groups and individuals aiming to defend lives, human rights and freedom of movement of people on the move in the Sahel-Sahara zone.
Who we are
Inform
Share information with people on the move on the conditions and dangers of traveling through the desert in the Sahel-Sahara zone. Alarme Phone Sahara respects people's choice to decide whether to stay or to leave, but helps to empower people to make their decisions based on reliable information.
Document
Share news, reports and testimonies on the realities of migration routes in the Sahel-Sahara zone. Document cases of accidents and deaths of migrants in the desert and also cases of mass deportations, pushbacks, leaving people in the desert and other forms of violence and human rights violations against people on the move.
Rescue
Alarm Phone Sahara helps to rescue people in distress on desert routes, mainly in the desert of the Agadez region of Niger. Alarme Phone Sahara maintains a toll-free phone hotline and a whistleblower structure in the Agadez region. In case of distress, whistleblowers help rescuing people or alerts state and non-state structures within reach of the place.
What we fight for
Human Rights
The members of Alarme Phone Sahara share the values of universally recognised human rights. They show solidarity and recognise the right to life, freedom of movement, respect for the physical and moral integrity of the human person and equality between all human beings.
Alarme Phone Sahara is characterised by its humanitarian approach and responsible commitment, based on activism. It is politically independent and non-confessional.
Freedom of movement
Alarme Phone Sahara acts with and for the most vulnerable, migrants and refugees are actors and decision-makers in their lives, they are free to make their own choices and commit to their future.
APS works in a spirit of cooperation with other local, regional, national and transnational structures of goodwill to improve the situation of people on the move in the Sahel-Saharan zone.
Local Base in Niger
Coordination office
Alarme Phone Sahara's coordination office is located in Agadez, Niger, which is a crossroads of migration in the Sahel-Sahara zone. The Coordination Office runs a telephone hotline for people who find themselves in distress on the migration routes. A network of whistleblowers operates in several places on the migration routes through the desert in the north of Niger to alert and help rescuing people in distress, provide practical support for people on the move and document the situation on the routes.
The members of Alarme Phone Sahara are based in Niger, but also in Mali, Togo, Morocco, Germany and Austria.
Where we are active
In Niger, Alarme Phone Sahara has local teams in Agadez, Arlit, in the Kaouar region (Dirkou, Bilma, Latai and Siguidine), Assamaka and Niamey.
Local APS teams
- Agadez, the capital of the large area of northern Niger and a major crossroads for trans-Saharan travel. It is frequented by many people on their way to Algeria and Libya. There are also deportees from Maghreb countries who find themselves stranded in Agadez in precarious conditions.
- Arlit lies on the route between Agadez and the Niger-Algerian border. It is a mining town and frequented by people on the migration route, but also by people deported from Algeria.
- Assamaka on the Niger-Algerian border is the arrival point for people deported in convoys from Algeria. The situation in this village is precarious in view of the large number of deportees - more than 30000 in 2024.
- Kaouar-region: Dirkou, Bilma, Latai and Siguidine in the Kaouar desert area are frequented by people on their way to or from Libya. People regularly find themselves in distress in this vast desert area, and many have already died there.
- Niamey, the capital of the country's administration, is where major migration policy decisions are made. Many people both leaving and returning to Niger find themselves wandering around the city, waiting to reach their destinations. But it is also the place that absorbs the majority of people on the move who wish to reside in the country.
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