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A dozen families were gathered on the wind-beaten beach — mothers and fathers crying as they begged fishermen for news. Their sons and daughters hadn't been heard from since setting sail for Europe during the previous three days, and the weather was worsening over the Mediterranean. Yet, even as the parents wept, another group was preparing to push off from the beach on Algeria's eastern coast. "Sardinia!" one of the migrants shouted. The Italian island lay across 150 miles of frothing sea, and they were making the voyage in a flimsy bark with a small outboard engine. Boat people from Africa are a drama Europe has been witnessing for years, many of them sub-Saharan migrants transiting through Algeria on their way north. But now Algerians themselves are joining the flow, fleeing a country that sits on vast reserves of oil and gas but has failed to spread the wealth to the public at large. There's even a new term for these boat people: "harraga," an Arabic word suggesting the burning of bridges as they turn their back on their homeland. Almost daily, North African media report on migrants arrested or drowned and washed ashore. Officials in Sardinia say some 1,500 migrants were caught last year, and about 1,000 so far this year. Journalists in Annaba think the number of departing migrants is much higher. How many evaded coast guards or were lost at sea cannot be known. The problem has grown so acute that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika publicly called on the country's young to join him in rebuilding the country rather than believe what they see on Western TV. "I appeal to the youth to heed to this plea, rely on productive labor ... and give up on the illusions of a pseudo overseas prosperity that satellite TV propaganda keeps trying to make us believe in," he said in an address for Algeria's Nov. 1 National Day. On the weekend before the anguished parents converged on Annaba, seven boats set sail carrying about 100 people, according to residents, relatives and fishermen. Some parents had posted photos of their departed children in a coffee shop where prospective migrants gather. Moussa Haidouci's son left last year and hasn't been heard from since. "You end up hoping your son was arrested somewhere just to learn he's alive," he said. He loses sleep worrying that the same fate awaits his youngest son, 11-year-old Abderahman. The 53-year-old father of seven said he used to make $200 a month as a carpenter on construction sites but is now unemployed and can't feed his wife, daughters, and handicapped eldest son. "People are too desperate here; leaving is the only solution," he said. He's looking for a safe way to get to Europe, find work and send back money so that his 11-year-old will resist the temptation to take to the sea. Zouhir Bounira knows the risks but is leaving anyway, "as soon as the wind calms down." "I don't care about drowning," he said as he strolled along the shore. "I'd rather be eaten by the fish than stay here to die slowly." Bounira, who grew up among the fishermen here, said he had already made the crossing to Sardinia two years ago, trekked through Italy and ended up in the French port of Marseille, working on construction and selling black-market cigarettes. He said he came back voluntarily when the government announced a plan to give loans to young unemployed people. "There never was any plan; no money was given," Bounira said, bitterly showing his one-way plane ticket home that he keeps as proof of his ordeal. Meanwhile, Algeria is the world's ninth biggest oil and gas exporter, about one-third of its output going to the U.S. This year, petroleum has generated a $133 billion cash budget surplus, and the official unemployment rate in the nation of 34 million is 13 percent — high but not critical. However, many believe the real figure to be much higher, especially among the young, and Algerian authorities say they are taking action. Government ministers point to a $1.5 billion program to aid young people, spread over nine years, and a work program that they say has helped create 70,000 jobs. Separately, the government announced last month that a $200,000 study is under way into why the number of beggars has risen dramatically. It also passed a law in September that threatens a fine and six months in prison for anyone leaving the country illegally. People in Annaba say they are seeing more Algerian sea patrols, but that police tend to ignore youths congregating on the beach not far from a large police station that is supposed to monitor the shore. "They understand that we're fed up," Bounira said. Coast guards recently arrested 34 would-be migrants off the coast but authorities freed nearly all of them after an angry mob besieged Annaba's court house. Algeria, for 132 years a colony of France, became a symbol of Third World Liberation after winning its independence in 1962, and was run as a one-party socialist state until it started holding elections in the 1990s and freeing up its economy. Annaba used to flourish on government-owned heavy industry, tourism, and fishing. But most state factories were closed or sold to foreign groups that massively cut jobs. The town emerged as a hub for Italian-bound harraga about two years ago when stepped up Spanish patrols made it harder to reach Spain from western Algeria. Some traffickers here are getting more organized, say those who track the phenomenon, but most crossings remain the work of amateurs who buy a boat from fishermen or have one built. Migrants pool up to $1,300 each for the boat, motor, fuel and a cheap GPS satellite device, and take an Annaba man for free to act as a guide. Migrants caught arriving in Sardinia or Sicily are taken to holding centers. Italy flies some of them home on special flights, but others simply are given a piece of paper ordering them to leave within days. Many ignore the order and head to northern European countries to join larger immigrant populations. Economics isn't the only factor driving emigration. Algeria still suffers from the aftershocks of a 1990s war between government troops and Islamic militants in which an estimated 200,000 people were killed. The insurgency continues at a lower level of intensity, led by an al-Qaida linked group that draws recruits from Algeria's disaffected youth. Kamel Daoud, head of the Annaba branch of the Algerian Human Rights League, says the young generation is heading to Europe because it places little faith in presidential elections due next year and "feels its only hope is beyond the horizon." Harraga aren't only poor, young, or male, said Kamel Belabed, who runs a support group for migrants' families. His own son, who he says left by sea 18 months ago and hasn't been heard from, "was reasonably well off and had a job." Other recent departures include married couples with children, and even skilled professionals such as doctors, Belabed said. France, once starved for migrant laborers from North Africa, now turns them away. Belabed said the son who subsequently went missing was three times refused a visa for France. "People are leaving because they've lost any other form of hope," he said. Associated Press Writer Ariel David contributed to this report from Rome.