The Deportation Chain

Our investigation reconstructed the journey following his arrest which ultimately took him from the shores of the Mediterranean, first to Algeria and then deep into Niger’s Sahara Desert, over three thousand kilometres away from the location of his initial arrest. Abdallah's journey was once of enforced mobility that exposed him and his fellow deportees to arbitrary detention, arrest, violence and human rights violations. Further, outlining part of a wider ‘deportation chain’, linking together a network of both non-state actors; national and regional governments in Tunisia, Algeria1 and Niger, which are systematically abusing vulnerable people; international organisations such as the UNHCR, who are failing in their mission to protect them; as well as the EU and individual member states, which continue to provide financial, political and operational support.

Before his smartphone was confiscated by the Algerian authorities, Abdallah documented his forced journey sharing GPS locations2, photographs3, videos4 and messages via WhatsApp with migrant support organisations RIL & ASGI, to denounce the injustices unfolding around him. Through this data and his testimonies, our investigation reconstructed Abdallah’s disorientating journey from the Mediterranean Sea deep into the Sahara Desert, piecing together the fragments of his nearly two-month journey, whilst outlining a complex mechanism designed to move venerable refugees southward away from both Africa and Europe's Mediterranean coast.

The investigation focused on the violent and lengthy journey Abdallah was forced to take after he was arrested without cause on the 3rd of May 2024. The arrest followed the violent evacuation by Tunisian security of the informal refugee camp located in front of the UNHCR and IOM headquarters in Tunis. The people residing here included migrants and refugees registered with the UNHCR and in possession of refugee cards, and asylum seekers pre-registered with the Tunisian Council for refugees. The camp had been set up by migrants and asylum seekers, mainly of sub-Saharan origin, many of whom were victims of growing racism and repression in Tunisia towards people on the move.

The violent raid of the 3rd May 2024 was carried out without any warning by Tunisian authorities: police, Intelligence Services and Garde Nationale. As the holder of an asylum seeker card issued by the UNHCR, Abdallah should have been guaranteed protection in Tunisia. Instead, after the eviction, he was arrested along with about 500 other people and loaded onto buses by Tunisian security forces. Later the group was abandoned near the Algerian-Tunisian border without knowing where to go, and without food or water.

In his roundabout, lengthy and violent journey, Abdallah was forcibly taken again from Tunis after returning following his initial deportation. This time in a police vehicle to the Niger-Algerian border, where he was instructed to cross and later exposed to arbitrary detention and imprisonment in the city of Tebessa and Tamenrasset. Following a period of detention in Algeria Abdallah was eventually deported to Niger, where after arriving in Assamaka on the Nigerien side of the border, he continued on his own, first to the city of Arlit and then to Agadez, the main centre in the north of the country. Abdallah is now at the UNHCR Humanitarian centre roughly 15 kilometres from the centre of Agadez.

In chilling detail, Abdallah’s story and that of his fellow deportees, including women and children highlight the ongoing violence faced by people on the move seeking security along Africa's northern coast. Their journey documented over two months of continuous displacement, and chronicled forced travel over thousands of kilometres, some by foot, some by deportations via bus, all the while traversing vast swathes of the north African continent. Ultimately leading the group to be intermittently detained and arrested without reason in detention centres where violence and abuse of detainees is standard procedure.

The chain of illegal pushbacks and deportations extending from Tunisia to Niger via Algeria outlined in our investigation is systematically conducted in violation of basic human rights, and otherwise well-known and documented by migrant rights defenders. According to the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the Tunisian authorities deported more than 9,000 people to the border between Tunisia and Algeria in 2024 and at least 7,000 to the border with Libya5. With expulsions from Tunisia a relatively more recent phenomenon, and on the rise.

The number of people deported from Algeria to Niger has also steadily increased, even in the wake of the military coup in Niger in July 2023. Estimates from Alarm Phone Sahara (APS) suggest that from the beginning of 2024 until April 26, at least 9,900 nationals from Niger and other sub-Saharan regions have been forcibly deported from Algeria to the Niger border. Evidence shows that these mass deportations are systematically conducted under violent and inhumane conditions, resulting in numerous injuries, trauma, and deaths. In Niger, one of the first measures taken by the new military junta that seized power in 2023 was to repeal Law 36 of 2015, which criminalised the illegal trafficking of migrants, effectively ending cooperation with the EU in this area. This also had repercussions on neighbouring countries. The increase in the flow of people from Niger to Algeria and Libya6 could be one of the factors that, in reaction, has contributed to an increase in expulsions from those same countries.

There are two types of deportation to Niger. There are the so-called 'official' convoys, named after an agreement signed between Algeria and Niger in 2014: the authorities of the two countries agree to deliver repatriated Nigerien citizens directly to Assamaka, a small town in Niger. In contrast, 'unofficial' convoys are for all persons of other nationalities who are instead abandoned at the so-called 'point zero'. This is a point in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, on the border between the two countries, from which those expelled are forced to walk about 15 kilometres to Assamaka. The latter of which Abdallah was victim of.

At the time of publication Abdallah and his group of fellow deportees were located in the UNHCR camp on the outskirts of Agadez, Niger7. The facility which opened in 2018, supported by European and Italian funds, is run by the Nigerien government together with UNHCR and other partner organisations. In mid-September 2025, it housed about 2,000 people, many of whom came from Sudan and other sub-Saharan African countries. They are refugees, but above all asylum seekers, waiting for the Nigerien state to respond to their applications for international protection, sometimes for years. According to Infomigrants, most of them arrived after being expelled into the desert by Algerian forces.

Refugees in Libya describes the facility as a 'desert detention camp', as documented in their recent publication Book of Shame: How UNHCR Fails to Protect Refugees in Libya, Tunisia, and Niger. Abdallah reports that he is trapped in this inhumane camp amid daily protests involving men, women, and children, against the degrading living conditions at the facility. The conditions in the camp, as well as the ongoing protest and appeals to the UNHCR and international community have been widely documented by the press and organizations supporting migrant rights.

Following the continued suffering and insecurity faced by Abdallah and other fellow deportees at the camp, their story has become the basis of a formal complaint to The United Nations Human Rights Committee, lodged by The Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI) and requesting the urgent provision of humanitarian aid to those displaced. In addition to this a report has been published by investigative journalism outlet IrpiMedia as part of their 'Desert Dumps' 8series, which highlights the systematic nature or deportations to Niger and the involvement of the European Union. What is new in Abdallah's case is the chain of expulsions from one country to another, which according to the most recent data and analyses is confirmed to be a widespread practice.