Poppy fields found in the Algerian Sahara

02/04/2008

The discovery of poppy plantations in a south-western Algerian province has officials responsible for fighting drug trafficking concerned.

Mohand Ouali in Algiers contributed to this report – 02/04/08

[Getty Images] Algerian gendarmes display seized poppy bulbs after raiding a drugs plantation. Officials have expressed concern at Algeria's role as a producer of narcotics.

Algerian national police discovered 25 poppy plantations on Tuesday (April 1st) while conducting their biggest-ever operation against opium and hashish farms in the Saharan wilaya of Adrar. Some 58,780 opium shrubs (used as the raw material for morphine and heroin), 6,020 hemp plants and 15 kg of opium seeds were destroyed and five people were arrested during the raid 124 km west of Timimoune, El Khabar reported. According to the paper, the quantity of drugs is equal to 83% of all narcotics seized in 2007, indicating that poppy cultivation is hitting an alarming level.

National Office against Drugs and Drug Addiction (ONLDT) Director Abdelmalek Sayeh described this new phenomenon as "worrying" in a statement yesterday to the APS press agency, although he was keen to say that – for now – it was still "limited" in size.

He noted that the total area of the poppy and cannabis plantations discovered is still modest: only between four and five hectares. "Algeria is not a growing country" for drugs, he said.

Monday's find may be troublesome, Sayeh conceded, but he noted that according to the United Nations, it is worse elsewhere in the Maghreb. Algeria's "crops are not as widespread as in Morocco, where the assigned acreage is up to 125,000 hectares," APS quoted him as saying.

In April 2007, the gendarmerie destroyed 16,000 cannabis stalks in Adrar. Also last year, several cannabis fields were discovered in the mountain community of Toudja. The contamination spread as well to the wilayas of Boumerdès and Batna.

Drug traffickers prefer the Sahara and the mountainous regions in the north of the country. In these desert or difficult-to-reach areas, it is harder for authorities to find opium and cannabis plantations.

Because of the difficult terrain and impediments to random searches, security forces have used tips from Algerian citizens. "Without the help of the public, we would never be able to discover all the places where drugs are grown," Sayeh declared.

Last February, authorities were already worried that Algeria was changing from a transit country to a consumer country for drugs. According to figures from the ONLDT, 16.5 tonnes of cannabis were seized in Algeria in 2007, compared with just 5 tonnes in 2005.

The number of drug addicts admitted by specialist hospitals rose as well, increasing from 4,306 in 2006 to 5,554 in 2007.