ASSAMAKA, Niger — In the scorching desert border town of Assamaka, northern Niger, truckloads of weary migrants keep arriving most of them expelled from neighbouring Algeria.
Since April, Algerian authorities have deported more than 16,000 irregular migrants to Niger, according to a source who spoke with the press. That number already surpasses half of all expulsions reported last year.
The surge is part of a longstanding pattern. For years, Algeria has deported thousands of West and Central Africans who cross its borders without documentation, many of them hoping to reach Europe through the perilous route across the Mediterranean.
On 1 and 2 June alone, 1,466 migrants arrived in Assamaka, according to officials in Arlit, the nearest major Nigerien city. The first group, which arrived on Sunday, included 688 people from across West Africa 239 of whom were Nigerien nationals. A second group followed on Monday, bringing 778 Nigeriens, including 222 children, squeezed into 13 trucks and a van.
The expulsions come at a time when Niger already grappling with political instability and a humanitarian crisis in its northern desert is struggling to cope.
“These deportations are putting serious pressure on our limited resources,” said General Mohamed Toumba, Niger’s interior minister. “They are disrupting our security balance.”
In May alone, Algeria expelled 8,086 migrants, including 5,287 Nigeriens and 2,799 others from countries like Mali, Guinea, and Senegal. April saw another 6,737 migrants pushed back.
The NGO Alarm Phone Sahara, which monitors migrant rights in the Sahel, condemned the expulsions, citing what it called “brutal conditions” and violations of human rights. The group has urged Algiers to “immediately halt mass round-ups and deportations.”
While Algeria defends the practice as a matter of national security and border management, critics say the scale and speed of the recent crackdowns raise serious humanitarian questions.
Many of the deportees are left stranded in Assamaka a sun-baked town with few facilities without water, food, or shelter.
To ease the pressure, Nigerien authorities said in May they plan to repatriate around 4,000 migrants to their home countries by July, working alongside the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The mass deportations come six months after Niger’s military government repealed a 2015 law criminalising migrant trafficking, a move that raised eyebrows among international observers.
Now, as the Sahel faces rising instability, growing numbers of migrants remain caught in limbo neither welcome in Algeria nor able to return home.
For many, Assamaka has become a dead end.
