APS : Saturday, 13 February 2021
ALGIERS- Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum on Saturday put forward the role of Algeria in the global, comprehensive ban on nuclear testing, stressing the disastrous effects of radiations from the nuclear
explosions of colonial France in Algeria’s south.
“On 13 February 1960 at 7:04 a.m., colonial France carried out its first nuclear test in the Reggane region of southern Algeria, an operation called “Blue Jerboa,” with a power of 70 kilotons, equivalent to an explosion three to four times more powerful than the bomb launched on Hiroshima, which has led to disastrous radiation, the damage of which is visible, until today, on the health of the inhabitants and the environment.” Boukadoum tweeted.
“This is why Algeria, which has always been at the forefront of the call for a complete ban on nuclear tests, contributed during its chairmanship of the first UN Commission, the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty on 7 July 2017.”
The nuclear explosion, which occurred on 13 February 1960 in Reggane, is part of a series of nuclear tests carried out by France between 1960 and 1966 in southern Algeria.
According to historians and experts, these nuclear tests in the country’s south are among the worst crimes committed by France during 132 years of destructive occupation of Algeria.
