Slavery in Tindouf Camps Exposed in a Spanish Novel

The practice of slavery in the Tindouf camps, in particular against women and children, cannot be veiled forever by the Polisario torturers and their Algerian protectors.
Many international NGOs and Human Rights advocates have repeatedly decried and denounced the abuses inflicted on the civilians forcibly held in south-western Algeria.
A novel recently published in Spain has exposed the inhuman and slavery practices committed by the Polisario leadership against the sequestered populations.
In this novel entitled “Besos de Arena,” Spanish writer and journalist Reyes Monforte describes the appalling living conditions in the Tindouf camps where women of color are bartered against commodities and goods out of the international community’s sight.
The main character of this 414 page novel, Laia , whose original name Noah has been changed by the  “masters” of Tindouf, started experiencing the slavery practice when she was hardly 6 year old.
Reyes Monforte tells the story of the young Laia whose right to childhood and freedom has been violated and who embodies the despair and frustration of thousands of other people in the camps of shame.

Part of Laia’s sad experience, the writer tells how she spent several nights attached by a rope to a van just because she could not finish all her chores.
The practice of slavery, corroborated by several witnesses / characters in the novel, has been denounced by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch which have both demanded an investigation on the mistreatment inflicted by the whites on the blacks.
Monforte, author of several books including “A Burka por Amor” and “La Rosa Encendida” imputed to the Algerian authorities full responsibility for the suffering of the people in the Tindouf camps. Algeria, which has “macabre records of extrajudicial killings, torture and disappearances», has received on its soil these populations and the Polisario criminals just out of desire to harm its Moroccan neighbour, states the writer.
The author of “Besos de Arena” also recalls the “terrorist” attacks perpetrated by the Polisario militias against Spanish soldiers, civilians and fishermen in the 70s and 80s.
At the end of the day, the Tindouf camps are a huge open-air prison causing offence to all humankind.

 

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