Mass burial reveals hidden toll of Algeria’s deadly ‘Black Wednesday’ wildfires

It’s after sundown, and a digger is carving a rectangular hole in the ground as around 20 men watch. The image was captured in a TikTok live shared on August 27, narrated by a man speaking in Algerian Arabic. "Each time, they bring 30 or 40 [bodies]. Many people have died. There are people who are looking for their parents, for their children and they haven’t found them yet. El Ancer, Texenna, El Milia, [almost all of the region of] Jijel has been affected." In this video, a young resident of Jijel documents the digging of a mass grave in the cemetery in the small town of Djemaa Beni Habibi. © TikTok Jijel is the name of both a town and a wilaya – a province – located on the northeastern coast of Algeria. It was one of the main regions affected by a wave of forest fires that began on August 26, nicknamed “Black Wednesday” by locals and some officials. The flames reached the outskirts of the towns listed above between August 26 and 27, as shown on the FIRMS site, run by the US space agency NASA, which enables the public to watch the progression of wildfires in real time. The towns of Texenna, El Ancer and El Milia were all impacted by wildfires between August 26 and 27, as shown by ...