Algeria’s Tuareg population in the Tamanrasset wilaya — and possibly in other areas — are once again demonstrating their unhappiness about the way they are treated by the authorities.

Ever since independence in 1962, references have been made to Algeria’s ‘Tuareg problem’, with no explanation as to what this actually means. It refers to a degree of ethic tension between the authorities and the indigenous Tuareg population of the southern desert regions — notably the Ahaggar massif and the Tassili-n-Ajjer — which together cover about 20% of the country and much of the two wilayas of Tamanrasset and Illizi.

In one sense, the ‘Tuareg problem’ is analogous to the so-called ‘Berber question’ in northern Algeria. Indeed, the group are a Berber or Amazigh people.

Unlike in Mali and Nigér, where the majority of Tuareg live, Algeria’s Tuareg have never taken up arms against their government. On the contrary, they can probably be considered as being more supportive of their nation state than their counterparts in Mali, Nigér or Libya.

The precise number of Algerian Tuareg is unknown. In the later part of the last century, language surveys put the number speaking Tamahak — the language of the northern Tuareg — at 25,000 of whom 20,000 are in Ahaggar (Tamanrasset) and 5,000 in Ajjer (Illizi). National censuses do not differentiate ethnic identities but we estimate the current population at more than 50,000, which could be greater if the number of Nigérien and Malian Tuareg in the region are included.

It is this relatively small number of Algerian Tuareg that is the basis of much of their current anger against the Algerian authorities because they feel that they are being marginalised. One reason for this is because Tamanrasset’s urban population virtually doubled in the 1990s as northern Algerians sought refuge, with their families, from the civil war of the north. In 2000 the population of Tamanrasset — which had been only some 4,000 at the time of Independence — had grown to around 100,000, more or less doubling in the 1990s and then doubling again between the end of the 1990s and today. This has meant that the Tuareg have become an increasingly small minority in their own region and this is the cause of much of their current anger.

Since President Abdelaziz Bouteflika came to power in 1999, the Tamanrasset area has increasingly become a replica of the country’s mafia state. Corruption and poor governance, especially towards the Tuareg population, has been rife which has given them a valid cause for grievance.

This segment is part of an article from our weekly Algeria Politics & Security publication. Get in touch to receive a free sample.