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After 2 month detention, Algeria to deport Palestinians to Cairo

November 28, 2018 at 2:15 pm

The Algerian authorities decided on Tuesday to deport 60 Palestinians to Cairo after detaining them for 60 days for entering the country “illegally”, Shehab news agency has reported. According to one of the detainees, the deportation order was expected to be carried out on the same day.

The Palestinians arrived in Algeria after crossing the desert. They handed themselves over to the security services in the hope that they would be given permission to stay. They duly applied for asylum, but their applications were rejected and they were sentenced to three months in detention for entering the country illegally.

READ: Algeria renews its support to Palestinian people

The detainees who spoke to Shehab said that they were kept in very poor conditions; their mobile phones were confiscated and their money ran out. They also went on a hunger strike for a couple of days but were unable to influence the authorities in any way.

One detainee explained that the group had contacted the Palestinian Embassy in Algeria, but it did not deal with their issue. “The ambassador told the embassy employee with whom we were dealing that the issue was not ‘our business’ because we entered the country illegally,” he said.