Algeria’s children of mountains suffers from lack of formal documents

Algeria’s children of Mountains have emerged recently as two cases appeared since the beginning of this year. They are innocent children, while they were born in the strongholds of the extremist groups in the country’s mountainous areas. Some of them do not have families, while others have families but have been deprived from education and other rights in life, including work.
On 14 April, the Algerian Ministry of Defense announced the arrest of an extremist arrest along with his family in the Wadi al-Zuhour area of Skikda province, eastern Algeria. His family is composed of his three daughters and two sons. His wife said, during the investigations conducted with her by Algerian authorities, that the conditions of living in the area are very difficult, saying that her sons have been deprived from all their rights, including education and treatment while they suffered from isolation.
The second case emerged when the Algerian Ministry of Defense revealed that an extremist woman with her three children, all born in the mountains, have been surrendered to Algerian army forces in the eastern province of Jijel. According to a statement from the Algerian Ministry of Defense, the extremist woman surrendered to the military authorities in Jijel province in an area known as the Tahr Tower.
The Algerian woman joined the extremist groups in 1996 with her three son, saying during the investigations conducted with her that all her sons were born in the mountainous areas and deprived from their basis needs of life. Human rights activists say that the major reason behind such a phenomenon is the absence of formal documents proving the identity of those people living there.
In recent years, calls to help the mountain children have come from many sides. Algeria needs a "special legal mechanism" to address the issue, the head of the legal assistance unit charged with implementing the National Peace and Reconciliation Charter, Marwan Azzi, said. Azzi said that DNA testing, investigation and other forms of verification were needed to prove the identity of the children. 

But even with this larger problem looming, the case of the mountain children is receiving particular attention. "Children born in the mountains are victims of the national tragedy," Dr. Thoraya Tidjani, a professor of sociology at the University of Algiers, said in a press statement. "It's imperative for the state to shelter those children and ensure their integration into society, since that is a key stage in the process of national reconciliation." Tidjani added that "failing to morally and financially support these children, and to integrate them into society, will have an adverse impact on them, since society's rejection of these children will cause them to feel antagonistic".