Algiers -- Thousands of young Algerians prefer to risk their lives at sea than to remain in a nation where they lack faith in their septuagenarian leader seeking his third term of office.

Officials in the oil-rich north African country, where Abdelaziz Bouteflika has pledged to create three million jobs if re-elected on April 9, are prone to admit they do not understand the nature and scale of the exodus.

More than 67,000 people last year crossed the Mediterranean to seek asylum in Europe, and 36,000 of those succeeded in reaching Lampedusa in the far south of Italy.