The arrest over the weekend of a young Sahrawi after he protested the destruction of a small shop he was building has degenerated into a large protest movement that set ablaze the Laayoune camp located about fifteen kilometers from Tindouf.
To show solidarity with the victim, Al Ghilani Lahcen Alhussein Boumerrah, nearly a thousand young people stormed on Sunday (May 11) the headquarters of the so-called province of Laayoune, setting fire to the premises and destroying all equipment.
According to several sources from Tindouf, the young protesters besieged the so-called Wali Hemma Albounya and inflicted him several wounds. They also burnt down his car.
It was actually at the Wali’s orders that the wilaya vigils arrested Boumerrah after they completely demolished the small shop he was building without authorization, near his home in the locality of Haggounya bordering on the road to Tindouf in southwestern Algeria.
According to the same sources, the security forces called to the rescue failed to restore order and disperse the hundreds of angry Sahrawis who were claiming the dismissal of Albounya and his assistants.
After they extinguished the fire that ravaged the Wilaya building, security officers chased protesters, arrested dozens among them and drove them blindfolded to an unknown destination.
Despite the harsh crack down and the curfew decreed in the evening as of 21:00 local time, the demonstrators continued protesting late into the night, demanding the immediate release of Boumerrah who was mistreated and thrown into prison at the Wali’s order and chanting slogans hostile to the Polisario and to its leader Mohamed Abdelaziz and his bodyguards.
Mobile units of the Algerian army were stationed at the camp to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the site.
However, the protesters continued challenging the security forces and waved banners proclaiming their support to the Moroccan autonomy proposal for Western Sahara and denouncing the Polisario chief, Mohamed Abdelaziz, and his aides for corruption and malpractice and their total ignorance of the sufferings of the civilian populations in the Tindouf camps.