Biggest evacuation in Algeria since independence

Algeria launched the largest population evacuation campaign since its independence as the government began to move thousands of people living in the capital’s slum areas to new apartments.

Repeated riots in several shanty towns across the country and security fears that slum areas could transform into breeding grounds for terrorist cells prompted an official decision to transfer, as a startup, the inmates of 12,000 impoverished dwellings into new suitable housing.

According to official statistics, the capital alone has more than 45,000 tin houses spread across shanty towns, cemeteries, and shelters of the May 2003 earthquake.

Security forces see target slum areas as potential breeding grounds for terrorists and suicide bombers, especially owing to the frustration of poor Algerians who complain about unemployment, poor housing and the dire living conditions.

The evacuation plan targets the entire country and has started with the capital Algiers, which houses the biggest number of slum residents. The majority of those people left their countryside villages during the civil war that started in 1992 in fear of falling under the grip of Islamist militants.

The evacuation aims at eliminating the phenomenon of shanty towns in the capital, said Housing Minister Mohamed Ismail.

“We’ll start with providing 12,000 housing units from now till October,” he told Al Arabiya.

The minister insisted the evacuation operation in the capital was just the beginning and that slums in other parts of the country would be dismantled, denying slum residents in the capital were receiving any special treatment.

“It is true that they will get the lion’s share in the current evacuation plan as they will be given 4,000 housing units, but this does not mean they are treated better than slum residents elsewhere in the country.”

Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika had promised one million new homes during his campaign for a third straight presidential term.

Several security reports established a link between poverty and terrorism. Those reports were submitted to the government and authorized as part of a nation-wide plan to contain terrorist hotbeds.

A suicide bomber who targeted the headquarters of the prime minister in April 2007 was raised in a slum area where he was dragged into radical religiosity


(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid and edited by Mustapha Ajbaili)