الـعـربية Español Français English Deutsch Русский Português Italiano
Friday, March 29, 2024
Top News

 The Washington-based NGO, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), lashed out at Algeria for its maltreatment towards the Sahrawi "refugees" in the Tindouf camps (Southwestern Algeria), noting that these populations are denied the freedom of movement.

  In its annual report 2007 on the situation of refugees in the world, the Committee deplores the fact that Algeria allowed the Polisario to "confine nearly a hundred thousand refugees" in the Tindouf camps.

    In this respect, the NGO cites the Amnesty International which affirmed the lack of the freedom of movement in the camps and that refugees who manage to leave the refugee camps without being authorized to do so are often arrested by the Algerian military and returned to the Polisario authorities.

    In the desert surrounding Tindouf (…) virtually no livelihood activity is authorized except that refugees could own goats and sheep, the USCRI goes on, underlining the dire health conditions prevailing in the camps.

    The Tindouf populations rely on humanitarian aids which are embezzled by the Polisario and undergo precarious conditions of access to housing, health care and education, the report points out, stressing that nearly 35% of the under 5-s suffer from chronicle malnutrition.

    Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario separatists are disputing control of the Sahara, Morocco’s Southern Provinces. The former Spanish colony was ceded to Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid Accord. Since then the Polisario separatists lay claims to this territory and hold thousands of Moroccans against their will in the Tindouf camps (south west Algeria).

    In accordance with the UNSG resolution 1754 that called upon the parties concerned to enter into negotiations “in good faith and without preconditions, Morocco and the Polisario held the first round of negotiations on the Sahara in Manhasset (New York Outskirts). The parties have agreed to resume talks in Manhasset in the second week of August.

    The United Nations Security Council, which convened on Wednesday in a closed-door session to discuss the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon’s report on the status and progress of the negotiations on Sahara, expressed its hope the parties to the issue will use the next round of negotiations to engage "in good faith in substantial negotiations."


 

 

 This website shall not be responsible for the functioning and content of external links !
  Copyright © CORCAS 2024