In the last days of August, devastating fires broke out in northeastern Algeria. Pictures of mass burials of dozens of victims revived discussion about the true toll of the fires, while the authorities did not communicate about this file since August 26, 2026. Meanwhile, Moroccan accounts on social media began spreading false news after that.

Published on: 09/03/2026 - 18:25

A bulldozer is digging a rectangular hole tonight, under the watchful eye of about twenty men. On these images taken from a video clip that was broadcast live on the TikTok application on August 27, a man said, commenting in the Algerian dialect:

Every time, they bring 30, 40 (corpses). There are a large number of missing people, and there are people searching for their parents and children, but they have not found them yet... in Al-Ansar, Taxna, and Melia... the entire Jijel region was exposed to the incident.

Jijel is the name of a city and state, equivalent to a governorate in Algeria, located on the northern coast of the country. This area was the center of the wave of forest fires that struck the country since August 26, which was described as “Black Wednesday” by residents and some officials. The extent of these aforementioned towns, which were affected by fire between the 26th and 27th of last August, appeared on the US Space Agency’s “FIRMS” website, which provides direct monitoring of the development of the spread of fires.

The author of this video clip is a young man living in the city of Jijel, who left his usual posts about sports and bodybuilding to document the situation.

According to this young man, the mass burial pit that was being completed while he was filming the sighting was in the town of “Jumaa Beni Habibi, which was severely damaged.” This reference allows us to find the location of the cemetery of this small town, which is located 30 kilometers east of the city of Jijel, where the photo was taken with this cemetery.

A large number of residents of the region turned out to attend the mass burial on August 28 last in the town of Juma Beni Habibi, where these videos were filmed, which were later published on social media sites.

On some of these photos, we see at least 13 coffins at the same moment.

A mass burial took place in the presence of the Prime Minister, but without announcing an official toll

The next day, other videos were posted by residents on social media and partly provide insight into the extent of the human toll of these fires.

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Another video, filmed after part of the mass burial pit was filled, shows more than twenty individual graves represented by a pile of dirt rising above the ground with a bottle placed on top of it and a stick.

The bulldozer shown at work while these photos were taken was filling three more bodies with dirt. A large part of the mass burial pit remained empty and appears to have been able to receive several more bodies.

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This video recording of a mass burial pit after it was partially flooded with a bulldozer allows us to identify the individual graves it contains, identified by the pile of dirt and the bottles and sticks that mark each one. We see more than 20 of these graves, without counting the number of coffins that need to be buried and the space that is still empty in the mass burial pit. Image of observers

The funeral was held in the presence of a large number of people, in addition to the Algerian Prime Minister and a number of government members. Official accounts on social media also referred to this event, but did not reveal the tally regarding the number of people buried that day.

For its part, other sources allow for the formation of a period around the toll of human losses: On the evening of last August 27, that is, the day before the mass burial, the official page of the Friday Bani Habibi municipality published two statements on its Facebook page (here and here) in which it presents the names of the victims who were gathered in two different hospitals. These two statements were directed to the families so that they could come and see the bodies.

After the editorial team deleted the names repeated twice from the lists, FRANCE 24 observers were able to identify 72 names.

The temporary toll has been significantly exceeded

The authorities in Algeria did not publish more official figures about the number of deaths and injuries related to the recent wave of fires that occurred in late August. The latest provisional toll announced on August 26 by the Minister of the Interior indicates that 12 people were killed and 54 others were injured. These are numbers belied by the mass burial process alone in the town of Jumma Bani Habibi.

Other earthen graves also contradict the official figures. An Algerian parliamentarian who visited an affected area on August 31 confirmed on Facebook that 19 members of one family were found dead in the town of Ansar during the “Black Wednesday” fires.

Relying on data from official officials, departments or families, the France 24 Observers editorial team was able to identify the names of at least 98 victims of the fires in the Jijel region. With the addition of local media publications, which are sometimes difficult to verify and which do not necessarily provide the names of the victims, the editorial team reached a total of 130 potential victims of the fire. Meanwhile, journalist Nezha Khallaf, who was referred to by some media outlets in Algeria and the French newspaper Le Monde, said that the death toll from the fires reached two hundred people, based on the same methodology.

The real number of victims could be higher. On August 28, the French magazine Jeune Afrique referred to statements by unnamed sources close to the Algerian Defense Minister. These sources confirmed that 385 people were killed during these fires, without counting the missing.

The editorial board contacted the Algerian Civil Protection to find out whether the official toll of the fires had changed since August 26. We did not receive her response. We will update this article if we receive new information.

A tragedy manipulated by calculations supporting the authorities in Morocco

On the

One of these accounts posted a video clip showing, according to what he claimed, “more than 20 victims” who were buried “at 3 am.” Another video clip “denies” the story of the “military regime in Algeria,” according to the post’s author’s comment. The France 24 Observers editorial team was unable to verify the authenticity of these photos from an independent source.

While other accounts on social media did not hesitate to manipulate the context of the photos of the mass burial in the town of Jumma Bani Habibi. By taking a photo excerpted from the video clip that was broadcast live on the TikTok application, which shows the process of digging a mass grave, an account called “Opinion Marocaine” confirmed that these photos show “a burial process under the cover of darkness in mass graves for fire victims in Algeria, in the complete absence of official media in Algeria.”

In fact, these photos show preparations for the funeral, which was most likely on the night between August 27 and 28 last year. The burial process itself did not take place secretly at night, as the owner of this account claims, but during the day and in the presence of a large number of people and local and national officials, as we saw in the photos above. This event was also covered by several Algerian media outlets, which criticized the government's handling of these fires.

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