Most of the fires that killed 38 people in northeastern Algeria are under control on Friday, but residents have been evacuated due to new departures, notably in the region of El Tarf, near the Tunisian border, devastated by flames.
“We are currently fighting 11 fires,” said the director general of civil protection, Colonel Boualem Boughlef, in the evening.
Civil Protection had rather reported fire starts, particularly in the El Tarf-El Kala area, after announcing that “all the fires” of the previous 48 hours had been extinguished.
According to the gendarmerie, “several roads in El Tarf have been closed due to the return of the fires”. Families in the village of Oued El Hout, near El Kala, were evacuated from their homes near a burning forest, according to images posted on social media.
More than 1,000 families have been evacuated since Wednesday from the disaster areas, said Colonel Boughlef.
The balance sheet of two days of gigantic fires in the north of the country officially remains 37 dead, including 30 in the area of El Tarf, 5 in Souk Ahras, 200 km away, and two in Sétif (east). The media reported a 38th victim, a 72-year-old man, in Guelma (east).
More than 1,700 firefighters
Every summer, northern Algeria is affected by forest fires but this phenomenon is accentuated from year to year under the effect of climate change which results in droughts and heat waves.
Experts have also pointed to shortcomings in the fire-fighting system: a lack of water bomber planes and poorly maintained forests.
More than 1,700 firefighters had to be mobilized to overcome more than 70 homes.
Several media speak of missing, without official confirmation for the moment.
Entire families perished, in particular a dozen people trapped in “a tornado of fire” in a bus in front of the El Kala animal park, near El Tarf.
An AFP team saw the charred carcass of the bus and met peasants who had lost everything, like Hamdi Gemidi, 40, still in shock at seeing his livestock burned alive.
“It is our livelihood, we are farmers, we raise livestock like sheep, cows, chickens and cattle. We have nowhere to go and nothing to earn a living,” he told AFP.
Solidarity
Ghazala, an 81-year-old farmer, saw her house, dog and cat engulfed in fire.
“People came to tell me to evacuate the house because I was in danger of burning, but I didn’t care because of my grief. I had accepted my fate, but the rescuers took me out with a few animals who were spared. I don’t know where to go now, should I stay in the fields, the forests or the mountains? »
The Ministry of National Solidarity announced “psychological and social care” for the victims.
Collections of clothes, medicines and food have started.
Individuals in Algeria or abroad relayed calls on social networks and directed them to sites where to deposit these donations.
Thursday, dozens of trucks loaded with several tons of humanitarian aid arrived in El Tarf, according to a press release from this prefecture.
Also out of solidarity, all artistic activities in the country have been postponed.
The Ministry of Justice has opened an investigation into the origin of the fires suspecting criminal causes.
Four arrests were announced: “an arsonist” in Souk Ahras, where more than 350 families fled their homes and a hospital was evacuated, and three other men in El Tarf, 200 km away.
They are accused of having set fire to the crops of a neighbour, without any link established for the moment with the fires in the area. According to the Algerian Penal Code, an arsonist risks between 10 years in prison and life imprisonment.
Since June 1, 1,242 fires have destroyed 5,345 hectares of forests and copses, according to Colonel Boualem Boughlef.
So far, the summer of 2021 has been the deadliest in decades: more than 90 people died in forest fires that devastated the north, in particular Kabylia.