NGOs, activists call for urgent intervention in Tindouf as human rights violations multiply

A group of regional human rights activists called on the United Nations to urgently intervene regarding the “grave violations” against dissidents in the Tindouf camps, after successive arrests carried out by the separatist Polisario front among young people rebelling against social conditions.

The Polisario has intensified arrests and kidnappings in the past weeks. This caused an increase in  social and human rights tensions, as according to Hespress AR sources, Sahrawi residents organized two protest marches to demand the release of detained activist Salem Maa Al-Ainin Souwaid on Tuesday.

According to the Forum for the Support of Autonomy in the Tindouf Camps, “Polisario kidnapped the spokesperson for the youth who were courageously protesting against aid smuggling on the road connecting the camps to Tindouf.”

Souaid had releaved illicit transfer of massive quantities of petroleum, ranging from 10 to 40 tons, from Algeria to Mauritania in a video he shared on social media.

With deteriorating conditions and essentials scarcity, the Polisario is now instrumentalizing dire living conditions and humanitarian NGOs, calling on the international community to grant more humanitarian aid to the front.

In a letter published on Wednesday, the associations explain that the population of the Tindouf camps has faced “over the last five years a drought and a shortage of basic necessities for survival (…). The war in Ukraine has had an impact on the already extremely limited resources of a population that lives almost exclusively on humanitarian aid.”

The NGO collective points out that “following the breakdown of the ceasefire between the Polisario Front and Morocco, the number of displaced persons arriving in the Tindouf camps (Algeria) reached 4,749, further complicating the already fragile means of subsistence in the camps.”

The signatories of the letter call on “civil society and the international community to redouble their efforts to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

In the meantime, the NGOs assure that they will continue to work to improve the living conditions of the population, and reiterate the need to increase funding to halt the worsening of this humanitarian crisis”.

In February, the Polisario called on “donor countries, UN agencies, humanitarian organizations and associations of the solidarity movement with the Saharawi people to provide urgent humanitarian aid to the Saharawi refugees.”

However, such calls for help will not alleviate the Sahrawis dire living conditions, as corruption and aid embezzlement remains rampant in the camps, despite residents protests, violently and vehemently fought by the separatist front.