Njem nlegharị anya n'ụsọ osimiri Mediterranean: kwụọ ụgwọ nche anwụ n'efu ma ọ bụ maa mma!

Pay for the free umbrella or you may get stabbed. This is the chance tourists may take when on holiday at this beach on the Mediterranean sea.  Gangs of unemployed youths started taking control of beaches in 2015 after the end of the Algerian civil war – when the state was barely present – as an easy way to make some money off tourists.

This may have not changed much these days.The tourism sector in Algeria has great potential thanks to its Mediterranean beaches, however, not so much if the tourists do not want to go there due to fear of being approached by the Beach Umbrella Mafia.

The city of Alger provides beach umbrellas for tourists to use, but some locals have gathered up the umbrellas so that they can then charge tourists to rent them.

According to insiders the city is well aware and may be part of this racketeering. Therefore  they look the other way so long as the tourists are not forced to pay for the umbrellas.

In one particular incident, the Mafia told tourists that they had to leave the beach when they refused to pay for umbrellas and instead wanted to use their own beach supplies. In a more harrowing confrontation, a tourist who had come to the beach with his family was attacked and stabbed after an illegal vendor heard him complain about the fees for renting beach equipment.

The Algeria Minister of the Interior and Local Collectivities is responsible for managing the coasts, and he has said that he believes in free beach. His ministry requested that city government of beach towns enact a law to have an administrator be in charge of monitoring a police force to monitor the beaches, but so far this law has not come to fruition.