Algeria to Reopen Land border with Tunisia

A general view of Habib Bourguiba Avenue in downtown Tunis, virtually deserted on the first day of a general lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ordered by Tunisia's president last Friday, in Tunis, Tunisia, March 22, 2020. REUTERS / Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo
A general view of Habib Bourguiba Avenue in downtown Tunis, virtually deserted on the first day of a general lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ordered by Tunisia's president last Friday, in Tunis, Tunisia, March 22, 2020. REUTERS / Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo
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Algeria to Reopen Land border with Tunisia

A general view of Habib Bourguiba Avenue in downtown Tunis, virtually deserted on the first day of a general lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ordered by Tunisia's president last Friday, in Tunis, Tunisia, March 22, 2020. REUTERS / Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo
A general view of Habib Bourguiba Avenue in downtown Tunis, virtually deserted on the first day of a general lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ordered by Tunisia's president last Friday, in Tunis, Tunisia, March 22, 2020. REUTERS / Zoubeir Souissi/File Photo

Algeria said Tuesday it would reopen its land border with Tunisia later this month, more than two years after it was shut at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We have taken the joint decision to reopen the land border from July 15," said President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

He was speaking at Algiers airport alongside his Tunisian counterpart President Kais Saied, who was leaving the country after attending a huge parade marking 60 years since Algeria's independence from France.

Passengers had been blocked from crossing the border since March 2020 to stop the Covid-19 illness spreading, although cargo traffic had continued, AFP reported.

Being cut off from a neighbor of some 44 million people has dealt a serious blow to Tunisia's tourism industry.

More than three million Algerians usually visit the country every year, according to local media.

Air and sea links between the two countries were restored in June 2021.



French-Algerian Author Boualem Sansal Handed Five-year Sentence

A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
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French-Algerian Author Boualem Sansal Handed Five-year Sentence

A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

A court in Algeria on Thursday sentenced an award-winning French-Algerian writer to five years in prison. The case against 76-year-old Boualem Sansal has become a flashpoint in growing tensions between the Algerian and French governments.

Sansal was arrested in November and stood trial for undermining Algeria's territorial integrity.

A court in Dar El Beida, near Algiers, sentenced "the defendant in his presence to a five-year prison term" with a fine of 500,000 Algerian dinars ($3,730).

Last week, prosecutors at an Algiers court requested a 10-year prison sentence for the novelist whose work has remained available in Algeria despite his criticism of the government.

Though Sansal was relatively unknown in France before his arrest, the trial has sparked a wave of support from French intellectuals and officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed the accusations against Sansal as "not serious", but had expressed confidence in Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's "clarity of vision" on the matter.

Macron has repeatedly called for the writer's release, citing his fragile state of health due to cancer.

Sansal's French lawyer, Francois Zimeray, condemned the decision in a post on X as "a sentence that betrays the very meaning of the word justice.

"His age and his health make every day he spends in jail even more inhuman. I appeal to the Algerian presidence: justice has failed, let humanity at least prevail."

According to his French publisher, Sansal is 80 years old.

France's Foreign Ministry said later Thursday that it was disappointed in the verdict and called for a “rapid, humanitarian and dignified” resolution to the case.