Illegal Immigration: Should I stay or should I go
Onlineredaktion - On the desolate beach of Sidi Salem, in the eastern suburbs of Annaba, a dozen young Algerian males alternate between kicking a soccer ball and working on several small, unmarked wooden boats. Each week, several boats leave from this beach, filled with a cross-section of frustrated young Algeria -- doctors, lawyers, dropouts, the unemployed.
They set out across the open sea, usually 10 or 12 to a boat, armed with water, food, blankets, a small motor and GPS tracking device, headed for the Italian islands of Lampedusa, Sicily or Sardinia. They are the harraga -- literally, "one who burns" identity papers and vital documents before departure -- and over 90 percent of them will either die at sea, be arrested and detained indefinitely in Tunisia or Libya, or be returned by the Algerian, French, Spanish or Italian coast guards.
Across the street from Sidi Salem beach is a police precinct, whose officers idly watch departure preparations knowing that they may be asked to arrest these same harraga upon their return. The issue has paralyzed the Algerian government, which vacillates between criminalizing the activity by arresting returning harraga and a more conciliatory approach by offering token financial incentives tied to political support for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Anything to make a highly unpopular and emotional issue go away.
But the problem is growing, and hundreds of departures from Algeria's eastern and western beaches each month no longer carry exclusively the poor, under-educated, young male stereotype. The harraga have become a fixture in the Algerian media, popular music and daily conversation, a symptom of a society in which entertainment is limited, the education system does not link to the job market, and the doors of opportunity are closed but to the well connected.
Many dead
The June 15 edition of the French-language daily Tout Sur l'Algerie featured 24 harraga who departed from Oran and were promptly arrested by Algerian authorities upon their return. The front page of the June 18 edition of the French-language daily Le Jeune Independant told of a larger boatload of some 150 clandestine immigrants en route from Libya to Italy that was wrecked at sea, with over 40 dead.
Of these, according to quoted survivors, at least 17 were Algerian. Although statistics are hard to verify, the article cited Spanish and Italian authorities who stated that roughly 16,500 clandestines attempted to arrive in Italy from Algeria and Libya in 2007, with another 31,000 departures from western Algeria bound for the Spanish coast.
Last November 11 the French-language daily El Watan corroborated those figures, counting 12,753 migrants arriving in Sicily during the first nine months of 2007, a 20-percent increase over the previous year.
They set out across the open sea, usually 10 or 12 to a boat, armed with water, food, blankets, a small motor and GPS tracking device, headed for the Italian islands of Lampedusa, Sicily or Sardinia. They are the harraga -- literally, "one who burns" identity papers and vital documents before departure -- and over 90 percent of them will either die at sea, be arrested and detained indefinitely in Tunisia or Libya, or be returned by the Algerian, French, Spanish or Italian coast guards.
Across the street from Sidi Salem beach is a police precinct, whose officers idly watch departure preparations knowing that they may be asked to arrest these same harraga upon their return. The issue has paralyzed the Algerian government, which vacillates between criminalizing the activity by arresting returning harraga and a more conciliatory approach by offering token financial incentives tied to political support for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Anything to make a highly unpopular and emotional issue go away.
But the problem is growing, and hundreds of departures from Algeria's eastern and western beaches each month no longer carry exclusively the poor, under-educated, young male stereotype. The harraga have become a fixture in the Algerian media, popular music and daily conversation, a symptom of a society in which entertainment is limited, the education system does not link to the job market, and the doors of opportunity are closed but to the well connected.
Many dead
The June 15 edition of the French-language daily Tout Sur l'Algerie featured 24 harraga who departed from Oran and were promptly arrested by Algerian authorities upon their return. The front page of the June 18 edition of the French-language daily Le Jeune Independant told of a larger boatload of some 150 clandestine immigrants en route from Libya to Italy that was wrecked at sea, with over 40 dead.
Of these, according to quoted survivors, at least 17 were Algerian. Although statistics are hard to verify, the article cited Spanish and Italian authorities who stated that roughly 16,500 clandestines attempted to arrive in Italy from Algeria and Libya in 2007, with another 31,000 departures from western Algeria bound for the Spanish coast.
Last November 11 the French-language daily El Watan corroborated those figures, counting 12,753 migrants arriving in Sicily during the first nine months of 2007, a 20-percent increase over the previous year.
sfux - 23. Jan, 10:16 Article 1479x read
