The Tindouf camps are run by the Algeria-backed Polisario separatists who lay claims to Morocco's southern Provinces, the Sahara. In the mid-seventies, the separatists lured thousands of Moroccan civilians into joining them in Tindouf, where these have been, ever since, held against their will.
 
    In a question that has been recently submitted to the European Commission, the European MP, German Vural Oger (Socialist Group) said "the statements of former Moroccan detainees in Tindouf camps mention cases of abuse and inhuman treatments."
 
    These testimonies, he said, were “confirmed by the investigations led by several international NGOs, which underline in their reports, rights violations, recorded in the Algerian prisons, then in Tindouf, on the Algerian territory.”
 
    Vural Oger asked the commission about the measures it intends to take in order to exert pressure on “Polisario and Algeria, responsible for rights violations on the Algerian territory, to cooperate so as these violations be recognized, victims be compensated and the responsible be identified and brought before justice.” 
 
    The European deputy also asked the European Executive to call upon Algeria, part of its international mandate to protect refugees, to allow the UN High Commissioner for Refugees free access to the populations in Tindouf camps,” recalling that “the Commission attention was attracted, at several times, by Polisario’s restrictions before the UNHCR access to Tindouf camps.”