The command of the national gendarmerie clarified that “the process of identification of the bodies continues”, which suggests that the assessment could further increase.
Le Monde
The balance sheet continues to increase, and it is not yet final. At least forty-three people have perished in the gigantic fires that have ravaged in recent days the forest and urban areas in northeast Algeria, according to a new assessment provided by the national gendarmerie, Monday August 22.
A previous assessment reported the death of thirty-eight people in these fires which touched fourteen governorates, notably the region of El Tarf, in the extreme northeast, near the border with Tunisia. The command of the national gendarmerie clarified that “the process of identification of the bodies continues”, which suggests that the balance sheet could still worsen.
The gendarmerie, quoted by Algerian radio, also announced the arrest of thirteen people suspected of being involved in these criminal fires which also made about two hundred injured, many of which were seriously burned. For its part, civil protection announced that in twenty-four hours (from Saturday to Sunday), thirty-one fires had been turned off in different regions of Algeria, after new fire starts.
Fireities aggravated by climate change
Each summer, the North Algerian is affected by forest fires, but this phenomenon increases from year to year under the effect of climate change, which results in droughts and heat waves. Experts have also shown gaps in the anti-fired system with a lack of water bombers and poor forest management.
Saturday, an expert told the agency France-Presse that around 10,000 hectares, or more than 10 % of the area of the El Kala National Park (Pnek) in the northeast of Algeria, Classified by UNESCO as a biodiversity reserve, had been destroyed by recent fires. Denouncing “a eating forest” through the establishment of a “dense road network” and “new localities” in the middle of the park, the expert, former director of the pnek, Rafik Baba Ahmed, said he was “very pessimistic “For its future and for the maintenance of its status by UNESCO.