Why Should the Tindouf Camps be Closed?

A delegation of Moroccan Sahrawis has exposed, during its current visit o Washington, the systematic violations of human rights committed by the leaders of the Polisario Front and demanded the closure of the Tindouf camps which have become a hub for trafficking of all kinds and a haven for terrorists.
The delegation drew the attention of the U.S public opinion, policy makers and media to these abuses and made an impassioned appeal for an end to the suffering endured by the populations that have been sequestered for several decades in the wilderness of the Algerian desert.
The Sahrawi delegation is visiting Washington to inform the U.S. public, media, parliamentarians and policymakers, about the human rights abuses and violations, which are a daily practice in the Tindouf camps, said Hajbouha Zoubir , a member of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS).

Rkia Derham, a young parliamentarian who is part of the visiting delegation, participated in a roundtable that was attended by executives and scholars of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a prestigious American think tank.
The young MP brought up in her address the large scale human and arms trafficking practiced in the camps, insisting that “these camps have become, in a dangerous context, a rear base for terrorist groups having adopted the ideology of Al-Qaeda.”
Taking the floor during the debates held at the headquarters of the International Republican Institute (IRI), Hamdi Cherifi, a Human Rights activist from the city of Laayoune, stressed the “extremely urgent need” to settle the Sahara conflict on the basis of broad autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, where there would be no winner or loser. He also called for the closure of the Tindouf camps, become, he said, “a platform of terrorism export in the Sahel-Sahara region.”
The Sahrawi delegation also held talks with several U.S. Congressmen, including senators Trey Radel and Ander Crenshaw and is scheduled to confer with officials from the State Department and the National Security Council. Other meetings and interviews with a number of U.S. think tanks and Medias are also on the delegation agenda.

 

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