***trigger warning: death, violence, injuries***
Assamaka / Agadez: The Alarme Phone Sahara team in Agadez announced on July 21, 2026, that a 30-year-old Togolese national, identified for now as Ousmane MANSOUR, had died at a clinic in Agadez.
Alarme Phone Sahara team Assamaka boarding people after deportation from Algeria - Ousmane Mansour sitting inside the tricycle's cargo bed - © Alarme Phone Sahara
Ousmane Mansour after deportation from Algeria - © Alarme Phone Sahara
Ousmane Mansour had been transferred by Doctors Without Borders from Assamaka, on the border between Niger and Algeria, with severe burns over his entire body, and he succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter.
Ousmane Mansour had been deported on July 12, 2026, along with a total of 656 other people, from Algeria to the Nigerien border near Assamaka.
According to what the Alarme Phone Sahara team in Assamaka learned from speaking with him and others concerned, he had suffered severe burns over his entire body caused by heated cans and scalding drops of liquid that fell on him while he was in the custody of Algerian security forces. In this condition, he was loaded onto the deportation convoy and abandoned in the desert at the Niger border along with the other deportees.
It has not yet been possible to reconstruct the exact sequence of events. What can at least be concluded for now is that a man suffered severe burns while in the custody of Algerian security forces, that he did not receive appropriate medical care, and that he was loaded onto a deportation convoy while in critical condition, with the result that, ultimately, any assistance arrived too late for him.
Ousmane Mansour was deported along with a group totalling 657 people, including 53 adult women, 5 minor boys, 4 minor girls, and 595 adult men. Among them were 49 people from Côte d’Ivoire, 113 from Guinea, 175 from Mali, 100 from Nigeria, 76 from Niger, 25 from Benin, 16 from Burkina Faso, 9 from Togo, 38 from Cameroon, 6 from Sierra Leone, 32 from Sudan, 16 from Chad, one person from The Gambia, and one from the Central African Republic.
The Alarme Phone Sahara team in Assamaka and Doctors Without Borders did their best to rescue people who had been abandoned in the desert, 15 km from Assamaka, after their deportation, and to treat the sick and injured.
Unfortunately, they were unable to save Ousmane Mansour’s life.
Deportations and the deadly border regime
Ousmane Mansour’s death is part of a brutal practice involving the regular organization of mass deportations from Algeria to Niger and all the way to the Nigerien border. These deportation convoys have already caused the deaths of several people in recent years. On a regular basis, during deportation convoys, people suffering from fractures and other serious injuries are abandoned in the desert near the border; many victims unanimously claim that these injuries were inflicted on them during mistreatment by Algerian security forces.
This treatment of people on the move is notably encouraged by the externalization of the European border regime, particularly through police cooperation agreements between European countries such as Germany and Italy and Algeria.
The Alarme Phone Sahara team shares the horror, pain, and grief over the horrific deaths of Ousmane Mansour and all other victims of the border regime.
Alarme Phone Sahara demands:
- A thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Ousmane M. and appropriate legal sanctions for those responsible!
- An end to mass deportations from Algeria to Niger and to the Nigerien border!
- Protection of the human rights of people on the move and safe travel and escape routes!
- The suspension of cooperation agreements on combating immigration between EU countries and Maghreb countries!
