A migrant defense organization, Horizon Sans Frontières (HSF), is concerned about the fate of 107 Senegalese migrants, including one woman. Stuck in Assamaka in Niger since October 11 after being pushed back by Algeria, they do not have the means to return home. These migrants are therefore calling on the Senegalese authorities to help them return to their country of origin.
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With our correspondent in Dakar, Léa-Lisa Westerhoff
Having left Morocco or Mauritania to Tunisia to reach Europe, these 107 Senegalese found themselves intercepted and expelled together. First from Tunisia to Algeria and then to Niger.
It is there, in Assamaka, a small town in the Agadez region in the north-west of Niger, near the border with Algeria, that they are now stuck, without resources, they say, and without possibility of leaving or returning to Senegal, explains Saliou Gaye, 31 years old.
“ We can’t go back ourselves because we have nothing, we have no money, we have nothing at all. The Algerian police took our money, even our beautiful clothes, they locked us up, mistreated us, they even committed barbaric acts against us. They imprisoned us, handcuffed us. We are begging our state to help us leave here as quickly as possible. We are in trouble. Truly, we are begging our state to help us. To do everything to make us leave here. »
According to Saliou, since the coup d’état in Niger, the Organization for International Migration (IOM) lacks resources to ensure the repatriation of migrants to their country of origin. He therefore asks the State of Senegal to come and recover them as soon as possible.