U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1999 - Algeria

Uncounted thousands of Algerians have fled their homes to seek official or unofficial refuge from Algeria's domestic political violence.

Tens of thousands of Algerians have sought official asylum in Europe. Hundreds of thousands more Algerians, according to some estimates, have fled to Europe without filing for official asylum.

Some 100,000 to 200,000 Algerians were internally displaced in Algeria at year's end, but reliable estimates of their numbers were virtually impossible because the international community had no access to the country's conflict zone.

Algeria hosted approximately 84,000 refugees at the end of 1998, including about 80,000 from Western Sahara, and 4,000 Palestinians.

Most refugees previously in Algeria from Mali and Niger completed their repatriation in 1998.

Pre-1998 Violence

Widespread violence has wracked Algeria since 1992, when the military forced Algeria's thenpresident to resign, canceled elections that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win, banned FIS as a political party, and jailed many of its leaders. The Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), an armed group affiliated with FIS, responded by launching an armed campaign.

Since that time, government forces and various armed groups, including the AIS, have fought a brutal conflict that has killed 60,000 to 120,000 people, according to a range of estimates by journalists and human rights workers. Algerian government officials contend that the death toll is 26,000.

Islamist rebels have targeted for attack government officials, journalists, foreigners, trade unionists, and other persons they perceive to be either pro-government or antiIslamist. Violence sharply escalated in the mid-1990s as massacres intensified in the so-called "triangle of death" located south of the capital, Algiers. Attackers typically slit the throats of their victims. Many victims were residents of remote villages.

Many civilian massacres were blamed on the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a radical offshoot of the Islamist movement. Algerian military units stationed near massacre sites conspicuously failed to protect civilians from attacks, raising suspicions that government military units were complicit in the atrocities.

Observers have attributed some massacres in recent years to an internal Islamist rivalry between the AIS and the GIA. Other atrocities reportedly have resulted from nonpolitical and nonsectarian conflicts over land and other local disputes.

The Algerian government routinely has blocked journalists, foreign diplomats, and international human rights investigators from investigating the violence independently.

Violence in 1998

Thousands of additional massacres occurred during 1998. Some 1,200 persons were killed in January, including 400 people who were slaughtered in a single night. The UN Human Rights Committee declared Algeria a "widespread human rights crisis."

Algerian officials permitted a UN delegation to conduct a two-week visit to massacre sites in mid-1998. The UN delegation reported that government and antigovernment forces were guilty of abuses but concluded that insurgents have committed the worst atrocities.

Independent human rights organizations complained that the UN delegation's report was inadequate and urged Algerian authorities to allow a more in-depth investigation by international experts. The Algerian government declined the request.

The full extent of population displacement remained unclear during 1998 because the government restricted access to conflict areas. One new study estimated that hundreds of thousands have become uprooted since 1992, primarily from small towns 25 to 50 miles south of Algiers. Additional displacement was reported in northwest Algeria, about 250 miles from the capital. Hundreds of people reportedly fled their homes in Bouira Province, about 50 miles east of Algiers, due to massacres in January 1998.

Many families uprooted from small villages and farms have fled to the capital, where some reportedly have settled into schools and mosques. Thousands lived in tents and cargo containers along busy roads. Others resided in shanty towns of corrugated iron that have sprung up in Algiers in recent years.

Algerian authorities appeared to offer contradictory advice to families newly uprooted by violence in early 1998: national officials assured families that their homes were safe and encouraged them to return home; some local officials, however, reportedly urged residents living in isolated locations to flee for their own safety.

Refugees from Western Sahara

Ethnic Sahrawi refugees, many of whom fled to Algeria in the mid-1970s because of civil war in neighboring Western Sahara, remained at four camps in a harsh, remote corner of western Algeria during 1998.

The year began with optimism that the refugees could soon repatriate to Western Sahara as part of a negotiated political settlement. The refugees expected to repatriate to vote in a referendum that would determine whether Western Sahara would become an independent nation or become permanently part of Morocco. Virtually all Sahrawi refugees in Algeria were believed to favor independence for Western Sahara.

Some 31,000 refugees pre-registered for UNHCR's repatriation program, which was expected to begin in August. Because of the relative lack of roads and the hostile desert environment, UNHCR prepared to help most refugees return home by air.

The scheduled referendum in Western Sahara did not occur, however, because of ongoing political disagreements. The delay forced UNHCR to suspend its planned repatriation program, and virtually no Sahrawis returned to Western Sahara during the year.

Most of the estimated 80,000 refugees continued to live in four designated camps located in a barren, flat desert near the Algerian town of Tindouf, some 1,000 miles from the Algerian capital. The camps – named Dakhla, Awsard, Smara, and El Aiun – have overwhelmingly housed female and child refugees over the years, while men fought in the Western Saharan war.

The desert camps have long suffered from poor drinking water. Without sufficient latrines in the camps, existing water wells have become contaminated. UNHCR completed a water development survey during 1998 and prepared to begin exploratory drilling for new water sources as the year ended.

Nearly half of the refugee children under age five reportedly suffered malnutrition, and many children developed hearing problems after years of living amid the wind and sand of the open desert, according to one report.

A well-organized school system in the camps has educated some 90 percent of the refugees. However, because they expected refugees to repatriate, authorities suspended repairs of schools and health clinics throughout much of 1998. UNHCR enlarged its field office in Tindouf during the year.

Refugees from Mali, Niger

Nearly 3,000 Malian refugees and 5,000 Nigerien refugees repatriated from Algeria during 1998.

Political violence in Mali and Niger pushed refugees into remote southern Algeria during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of the refugees were ethnic Tuareg, a traditionally nomadic population.

The Tuaregs' largely nomadic existence in the heart of the Sahara Desert made population estimates difficult, creating uncertainty about the exact number of refugees who continued to live in Algeria in the late 1990s.

The refugee population peaked in 1994-95, at about 50,000, mostly from Mali. When peace returned to Mali, UNHCR/Algeria began an organized repatriation program for Malian refugees in 1995, which continued until early 1998. Tens of thousands of refugees gradually left Algeria for Mali on their own or on UNHCR trucks along desert paths.

Some 2,500 Malian refugees officially repatriated from Algeria during 1998. It is believed that additional Malian refugees departed Algeria without assistance. Only about 200 Malian refugees remained at year's end.

An estimated 10,000 refugees from Niger lived in Algeria as 1998 began. Nearly 3,000 repatriated from Algeria with UNHCR assistance during the year. The refugees received medical exams before leaving two camps.

Other Nigerian refugees either left Algeria spontaneously without assistance, or remained for economic reasons. UNHCR no longer considered them refugees at the end of 1998.