4th UN Committee: Petitioners denounce Polisario’s atrocities in Tindouf

Many Sahraoui petitioners have presented, before the UN 4th Committee in New York, overwhelming evidence on the gross violations of human rights perpetrated by the Polisario in the Tindouf camps in Algeria.

The president of “Association 9 Mars” based in the southern provinces of the Moroccan Sahara, Zine El Aabidine El Ouali, said that the persecution of human rights activists “is a long-standing practice” in the Tindouf camps, where the Polisario arrests anyone who dares to denounce its unhuman practices or oppose its obsolete thesis on the Sahara conflict.

The Sahraoui activist also denounced the complicity of the authorities of the host country, Algeria, who tolerate and cover the atrocities committed by the Polisario.

He further called on the international community to protect the physical integrity of human rights defenders detained in illegal jails, controlled by the Polisario armed militia, and to ensure that the perpetrators of such abuses are held accountable.

Another Sahraoui petitioner, Hamada El Bihi, a former Polisario executive who was in charge of the delivery of humanitarian aid, told the Committee how he himself was snatched to his family when he was only four-year old and sent forcibly by Polisario militias to a country in South America. He remained there for more than 15 years, along with hundreds of other Sahraoui children, to be indoctrinated to the communist ideology, and undergo military training as they were enlisted, upon their return, in the Polisario militia.

El Bihi, who managed to escape the Tindouf camps and rallied Morocco, also accused the Polisario leaders of “killing, torturing and ill-treating innocent people in the Tindouf camps in prisons built underground” in the Algerian desert.

These persecutions are committed “with the endorsement and support of the host country, the eastern neighbor of Morocco,” he said, calling on the international community to hold Algeria morally and legally responsible for these atrocities that are committed on its soil.