Coronavirus: Polisario Imposes Total Blockade on Tindouf camps Populations

As countries around the world have enforced a partial or full lockdown to protect their people from the coronavirus pandemic, the Polisario leaders have imposed a total blockade on the Saharawi populations to prevent them from leaving the camps.

Through this blockade, the leadership of the separatist front also seeks to block any information leak on the situation in the camps wherein thousands of civilians, men, women and children are completely left to fend for themselves in face of covid-19 pandemic, which has already infected, according to a latest tally, 1,468 people and killed 193 in Algeria, host country of the Saharawi populations.

The Polisario leaders, most of whom are installed comfortably by the host authorities in villas in the Algerian town of Tindouf, do not care a whit about the sufferings of the inhabitants of the camps, their food shortage, medical assistance and protection against the deadly covid-19 infection. 

This negligence is aggravated by the lack of sanitary facilities and appropriate hygiene conditions, except for a few confinement rooms hastily set up without any sanitary equipment.

In addition, the Algerian army has completely blocked the access and exit points of the Tindouf camps since Algerian rulers declared the state of health emergency. 

According to informed sources in Tindouf, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the camps amounts to 250, including at least 17 armed Polisario militiamen posted near the borders with Mauritania.

There are also several deaths from Covid-19 which have been kept in secret by the Polisario leadership, add the same sources, cited by human rights activists based in Laâyoune and Dakhla. 

The human rights militants sound the alarm bell about a humanitarian tragedy in these camps located in the Algerian desert, urging the international community and the World Health Organization (WHO) to intervene.