The nuclear explosions carried out on February 13, 1960 in Reggane (wilaya of Adrar) will always bear witness to the atrocity and barbarity of abject French colonialism and its share of crimes against the Algerian people, believe the inhabitants of this region of southern Algeria.
Speaking on the eve of the commemoration of the 62nd anniversary of these nuclear explosions, residents of the region who experienced this apocalyptic event perpetrated by colonial France in the area of Hamoudia in Reggane say “to this day, they continue to suffer from this odious crime against humanity and the drama caused to Men and the Environment”.
At a time when the French media overseas rejoiced over their country’s success in entering the nuclear club with this explosion, the residents of the Reggane region were facing a real night of terror as a result of this nuclear terrorism that surprised them on the thirteenth of February 1960, leaving various injuries and cases of panic as a result of the magnitude of the explosion, which they had never known before, as indicated by the Mujahid Aabella Abdullah, born in 1938, who worked as a worker in the bombing field during that period.
Reggane nuclear explosions have left strange and unprecedented cases of illness among the residents of the region through the emergence of congenital malformations of a number of newborns, eye diseases and cancers, in addition to environmental damage that negatively affected the size and quality of agricultural production in the region.
Many cases of congenital malformations were recorded in the region, such as the 20-year-old child, Abderrezak Baïmoune, from Ksar Anzeglouf in Reggane region, who suffers from a malignant enlargement of one of his legs that prevents him from living his life normally like his peers, only to find himself hostage to health problems and physical and psychological suffering.
For his part, the farmer Mebarek Mabrouki, indicated that agricultural production, since the occurrence of those nuclear explosions in the Reggane area, has known a noticeable decline and change in the quantity and quality of production compared to the previous years of the last century.
This was evident, especially in the field of plant health for palms, various fruit trees and vegetable crops and grains, whose production was affected in quantity and quality in this region after its oases were yielding abundant fruit, which led the farmers to a continuous battle of resistance to save their oases from the danger of decline and demise due to these factors.
ENTV 02/2022
