Stop the violation of the human rights of people on the move – no more deaths!
During the weeks of April, the cruel mass deportations from Algeria to the Niger border at Assamaka have escalated alarmingly.
According to security officials in Assamaka, between 1 and 21 April 2025, 2753 Nigerien citizens, including 308 minors and 196 women, were deported from Algeria in so-called official convoys. In addition, during the same period, 2222 people deported in so-called unofficial convoys, including 146 Nigerien citizens and 2076 nationals of other countries, also arrived in Assamaka, having been forced to walk about 15 km on foot from ‘Point Zero’.
In total, since the beginning of 2025, more than 7,000 people have already been deported from Algeria to Niger.
© Office de Radiodiffusion et Télévision du Niger (RTN)
Several people who were deported with the convoys shared painful experiences during the deportation, being severely humiliated, mistreated, injured and robbed by Algerian security forces.
Deportations from Algeria to Niger are killing people!
Alarme Phone Sahara deplores the fact that the brutal mass deportations have also caused the deaths of several people who died between ‘Point Zero’ and Assamaka after being abandoned there by Algerian security forces:
On 2 March 2025, a Malian migrant died upon arrival in Assamaka after being beaten by the police in Algeria.
On 19 April 2025, the Alarme Phone Sahara team reported the death of an Ivorian national.
On 22 April 2025, the bodies of two migrants were found in the desert area between Point Zero and Assamaka.
Solidarity on the ground in view of the humanitarian crisis
The Alarme Phone Sahara team in Assamaka, in collaboration with other solidarity organisations, is present every day on site and travels by tricycle to ‘Point Zero’ to pick up those who have been deported and are too sick, injured or weak to walk the 15 km to Assamaka.
Alarme Phone Sahara assisting people after deportation. Many people arrive with injuries inflicted on them during the deportation convoy.
© Alarme Phone Sahara
With modest resources, the team also provides initial food aid and other forms of assistance in addition to transporting the sick and injured to the Assamaka infirmary.
Alarme Phone Sahara commends the measures taken by the Nigerien state to help those deported to Assamaka in order to address the humanitarian crisis that is worsening due to the mass deportations carried out by the Algerian state. However, in order to fundamentally resolve this crisis, the mass deportations from the Maghreb countries must be stopped.
The humanitarian crisis and the responsibility of European states
Alarme Phone Sahara emphasises that EU member states bear direct responsibility for what is happening on the Algerian-Nigerien border:
Alarme Phone Sahara demands, in addition to emergency aid for the thousands of people deported, an immediate end to the raids and mass deportations in Algeria and Tunisia, as well as an end to border violence and human rights violations against people on the move!
EU member states have a duty to immediately end agreements and cooperation with Maghreb countries aimed at preventing migration, as they are complicit in systematic border violence and the deaths of people on the move!
Alarm Phone Sahara calls on international aid organisations to provide emergency medical care to those deported to Assamaka. They also need water, food and shelter. Currently, exhausted and injured people are living on the streets of the desert village of Assamaka. Survival aid is urgently needed!
Further read:
Informigrants.net: Algeria expels more than 1,000 migrants to northern Niger