Human rights activists and victims of violations committed by the ”polisario” have questioned the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) about enforced disappearances and abuses perpetrated by separatist militias in the Tindouf camps in Southwest Algeria.
Speaking at the 58th session of the HRC, Lemaadla Mohamed Salem Zrug of the African Network for Development, Governance, and Human Rights (RADHEG) pointed out that international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and France Libertés have documented the most heinous human rights violations committed by the “polisario” militias and the Algerian army.
Speaking during the interaction with the report by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, she listed in particular enforced disappearances, systematic torture, extrajudicial executions, rape, slavery, and deprivation of international aid, in addition to the use of child soldiers.
In these camps, which are totally besieged by Algerian forces, “there is not a single tent that has not witnessed a horrific story linked to the polisario leadership atrocities,” Salem Zrug said.
She mentioned the case of her own father, who was abducted before she was born and tortured to death. “We still don’t know what happened to his body,” she lamented, recounting how she was later ripped from her mother’s arms and sent to Cuba with thousands of other children, where they endured years of forced labor and ideological indoctrination.
“As soon as I returned to the camps, I was persecuted and oppressed because I dared to demand to shed light on the fate of my father, whom I had never seen in my entire life,” Salem Zrug said with emotion.
For his part, El Fadel Barika, a former Sahrawi detainee in the “polisario” secret prisons, reviewed the abuses suffered by those held in the Tindouf camps.
The activist cited in particular the suppression of freedom of expression, a ban on journalistic work, the spread of slavery, and restrictions on movement in and out of the camps, in addition to racial discrimination by the Algerian authorities against the Sahrawis.
According to him, “the latest episode in these racist practices was the barbaric assault of Sahrawi female students by the Algerian authorities after they demanded that the racial discrimination against them at the Lycée Labyoud, in the wilaya of Mécheria, be brought to an end.”
“These assaults have resulted in injuries among the victims, some of whom are in critical condition, and their parents have not been allowed to leave the camp to visit them in hospitals where they continue to be attacked physically and psychologically after publishing photos showing the severity of their injuries,” Braika said.
He also drew attention to the worsening siege imposed on the Sahrawis in the Tindouf camps after the Algerian authorities decided last month to limit the number of vehicles allowed to leave the camps each week to just 90.
The Algerian army has carried out a massive arrest campaign targeting young Sahrawis attempting to flee the camps, with Sahrawi activists documenting the arrest of 43 young people since the start of this year alone attempting to leave the camps, Braika added.
He called on the international community to pressure Algeria to assume its responsibility to provide protection for the Saharawis on its territory and to stop the impunity that encourages the “Polisario” militias and their leaders to continue their heinous crimes against the Sahrawis.
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