Algerian security services patrol in the Sahara desert village of In-Salah, south Algeria (AFP)
Algeria has barred all Syrians from entering the country via its southern border with Mali and Niger, as part of what a senior Algerian official said was an attempt to keep out members of defeated Syrian rebel groups.
Hassen Kacimi, the official in charge of migration policy at Algeria's interior ministry, told Reuters news agency on Wednesday that Syrians seeking to enter Algeria through the southern border were suspected to be Islamist militants and were not welcome.
"We have hosted 50,000 Syrians in the past few years for humanitarian reasons," Kacimi said, alluding to refugees from Syria's civil war, "but we cannot accept members of armed groups fleeing from Syria when it comes to our security."
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He said around 100 Syrians had reached the southern border with the help of local armed escorts in recent weeks, but they were intercepted and expelled shortly after they entered Algeria.
Kacimi said these Syrians had transited through Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Niger or Mali using fake Sudanese passports.
Algeria has kept diplomatic relations with Syria throughout its civil war, in which President Bashar al-Assad, backed by ally Russia, has largely defeated rebels and militant groups.
Syrians do not need visas to enter Algeria.
Algeria deported around 50 Syrian and Palestinian refugees last week, according to the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH), a national human rights organisation.
In a press release, LADDH said the refugees were boarded onto a bus to Niger on 25 December.
Algeria's south and southeast are largely empty desert regions, but the country has beefed up its security presence there after neighbouring Libya, northern Mali and Niger fell into the hands of various militant and rebel factions.
Algeria went through years of devastating civil war with militant groups in the 1990s.
While violence is now greatly diminished, sporadic attacks continue in isolated areas. Algeria has also now become a US ally against militant organisations active in the arid Sahel region of north and west Africa.
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