 The Global Africa Latina Foundation, which brings together a group of Latin American NGOs, condemned the permanent confinement of populations held captive by polisario leaders in the Tindouf camps.
"The military stranglehold on these camps and the manipulation of international humanitarian aid are keeping the population in permanent captivity," the Latin American foundation noted in a statement on Thursday.
"The panic and despair among the populations held captive in the camps reflects their distrust of the polisario leaders and their suffering, which is worsening with the spread of the pandemic," noted the organization, underlining that these Sahrawi populations "only want to survive for the next day".
Sources in Tindouf revealed that these populations are very concerned about the danger that an outbreak of contamination on a large scale can cause in this area of no law where Algeria has given up its powers to the polisario, it said.
The same sources are concerned about the exploitation of this pandemic by the leaders of the Polisario and their mercenaries, who exploit humanitarian food aid for their benefit while the population of the camps is in distress, without water or food, citing the cases of some people contaminated with Covid-19 "who are locked up in tiny isolation rooms, in the absence of sanitation and equipment essential for their daily needs".
For their part, political prisoners are deprived of all contact with their children, brothers, parents or friends, and suffer physical and psychological torture, added the Foundation.
"Arresting and sentencing seems to be the basic scenario" of the Polisario militias to maintain their control over the populations held captive in the camps away from the international community," it underlined.
For the Latin American Foundation, this situation is worsened by the lack of medical means to care for the sick and detect the virus, not to mention the lack of hygiene, connection to drinking water and systems of sanitation etc.
Concerned with this alarming situation, the Latin American organization condemned the human rights violations in the Tindouf camps by the armed separatist movement, the Polisario, while calling on the international community and human rights organizations to intervene to save a population "destitute and abandoned to its fate" amid a devastating pandemic.
The Global Africa Latina Foundation urged the United Nations, including the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet "to investigate the plight of the vulnerable population of Tindouf, who suffer from the iron grip and the tyranny of the Polisario and its mentors".
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