On May 26, the independent El-Khabar newspaper carried the following report by its correspondent Mohammed Bin Ahmed: “On the night of Saturday-Sunday, violence re-erupted in the center of the city of Ghardaia, and the Colonel Lotfi Square and the wood market witnessed what could be described as being a real battle between the national police and a group of young men. These new confrontations were characterized by the arrest of two people and the injuring of no less than 10 protesters and six police elements…, at a time when citizens from Ghardaia condemned once again the mismanagement of the security situation by the security forces. For their part, citizens among the families and parents of the victims of violence in Ghardaia, reiterated their calls for the surrender of those truly involved in the killings to the judicial authority.

“On the other hand, citizens from various neighborhoods changed the names of certain streets, and replaced them with the names of the “victims of the acts of violence in Ghardaia,” after they removed the old plates. As for the families of the wounded injured in that same incident where the three victims dies in Hajj Massoud neighborhood, they indicated that the authorities did not achieve any progress in the investigations into the identity of those who carried out the attack more than two months ago. In a related context, an official source from the Ghardaia province said that over two weeks ago, President [Abdelaziz] Bouteflika adopted a decision to give the responsibility of managing the security situation in the city to the governor of the province and the Ministry of Interior, after it had been handled for more than 20 days by the commander of the fourth military region, General Kamal Abderrazzak…

“Our source added that President Bouteflika’s decision was based on the massive security responsibilities assumed by the commander of the fourth military region, who is also in charge of the Algerian-Libyan border security, knowing that the decision to assign the army to handle the security situation in Ghardaia was temporary and automatically expired – as per the decision – upon the appointment of a new Interior Ministry following the presidential elections…” – El-Khabar, Algeria