Letter From Algeria

By Jack Brown

This article appeared in the April 12, 2004 edition of The Nation.

March 25, 2004

The winter rains in western Algeria brought a strange harvest to the village of Sidi M'hamed-Benaouda.

When the water receded from a field in this village in the mountains between Algiers and Oran, it carried away a layer of dirt covering the bones of one or more people who had been kidnapped by a government-sponsored militia almost a decade ago.

A lot of bones are probably going to be found in Algeria in the coming years. Somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000 people were disappeared by the government and its minions during the appalling civil war that consumed the country during the 1990s.

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About Jack Brown

Jack Brown (jack@jackbrown.us) is a writer living in Mexico. more...
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