Algerian skies reopen: families prepare for reunion

was the first time in my life that I have awaited a press release from a council of ministers. Usually it didn’t mean anything to me at all. Ahmed, in his fifties, living in the eastern suburbs of Algiers, electronics engineer in a public company, smiles to the full, recounting the end of the day on Sunday May 16, when the authorities finally announced the partial reopening of the closed borders since March 2020. All day this Sunday, Algerians on both sides of the Mediterranean, in the grip of an unbearable emotional lift, scrutinized social networks and news sites to track down the slightest leak, rumor, clue, on the possibility of the reopening of borders.

Leap of joy

When the Minister of Health, Abderrahmane Benbouzid, declared on May 13 that there would be the possibility of allowing Algerians and foreigners to enter by plane, Ahmed did not believe it too much. ” It was too good to be true. We said to ourselves that they would continue the closure until after-summer, after the generalization of vaccinations in France and here, ”he confides in this Algerian café.

Ahmed is not the only one and many did not believe it, letting fatality and anger invade their pessimistic forecasts: “It is a lure to calm people down as the legislative elections approach. [du 12 juin prochain] “,” It concerns only the entries of foreigners “,” they will never open until the variants are not mastered in Europe “, and so on.

The formalization, on May 16, of the partial resumption of commercial flights – with five services to and from Algiers, Oran and Constantine, from 1^is June – “made Ahmed jump for joy”, who spent a good part of his Sunday evening hanging on his phone screen.

“Don’t bring anything back, just come”

“I immediately called my sister on WhatsApp who lives in Colombes [nord-ouest de Paris] », Says Ahmed. Amina, her sister, her husband and their three children, settled in France for fifteen years, have not returned to Algeria for over a year. “We put on the video and saw my sister’s whole family in their living room screaming with joy, we did the same while thinking of my grandmother who left this year without her grandchildren being able to attend her. burial, it was a terrible ordeal, ”says Ahmed.

Brimming with enthusiasm, his sister, a caregiver, and his brother-in-law, manager of an interim agency, planned their return, the visits to the family in Algiers and in Kabylia, live on the hopping screen of hand in hand between Ahmed, his wife and his two children.

“Don’t bring anything back, we told them: ‘Just come on,’ says Ahmed, who continues: ‘The same evening, my brother-in-law started looking for tickets on the Air Algérie site, without success and the next day. , he showed up at Opera [l’agence d’Air Algérie boulevard de l’Opéra dans le 1^er arrondissement parisien, NDLR], but, there, the curtains lowered. ”

In fact, Algerians on both sides of the sea embarked, from the evening of May 16, in the quest for the precious ticket reservation. But Air Algérie has not yet opened its flight programs, waiting for the terms of the resumption to be clarified. Authorities said more details would be released early next week.

The prospect of return does not only concern Algerians. “I can finally return after months of blockage in Paris,” sighs a Frenchwoman living between the two countries for nearly twenty years: “Algiers, its people, my house, my friends… I missed it so much. “” I have not seen my parents since Christmas 2019, says, for her part, a French woman married to an Algerian and living in Algiers. I had despaired of seeing them again this summer, but now we’ll see the end of the tunnel soon. ”

Priorities to be defined

The rush promises to be massive as the separations and frustrations have lasted, and calls are already being made to rationalize as much as possible the appetite for departures and reunions.

“Relieved and happy for the Algerians who are elsewhere. Welcome home, to your loved ones. The flights are insufficient and the urgency is not the same for everyone. It would be good to show solidarity and leave the first flights to the stranded, the needy, the destitute, the urgent cases and the sick. I know you are all bothered by lack, but for some it is in the last hours of a dying mother that they wish to attend or to eat their fill. Do not reproduce the same contempt and selfishness with which you were treated, ”writes on his Facebook page, author and activist Sidali Kouidri Filali.

Moreover, according to a member of the scientific committee, Professor Riad Merhaoui, the first step in the opening of the Algerian sky will concern, “initially, the people to be repatriated, the sick, those who have an employment contract, studies, subject to authorization ”.

The exceptional exit authorization for trips abroad, available on the website of the Algerian Ministry of the Interior, would therefore remain in force.

Labs in airports

In addition, the wait is felt for the opening, not yet scheduled, of the maritime and land borders. Hundreds of Algerians have been stranded on both sides of the Mediterranean with their vehicles for months and are growing impatient, hoping for the return of maritime links between Algeria, France and Spain. “But given the large proportion of these flows, the authorities prefer to delay and prioritize the first stage of air opening by imposing the PCR test at least 36 hours before departure and an antigen test on arrival in order to avoid the aggravation of a pandemic situation which remains, for the moment, controlled [en Algérie] », Explains an official source, which specifies that« Algerian airports will very quickly be equipped with analysis laboratories to prepare the resumption of flights ».

In front of his cooled coffee, Ahmed takes his illness patiently: “Five flights a day is still little, but it is already that”, he blurted out, fatalistic, before smiling: “I don’t even dare. imagine the emotion when I take my nephews in my arms, and just that, it’s huge! ”