A symposium on the Sahara issue has urged the international community to exert efforts for the release of thousands of Moroccans detained against their will in the Tindouf camps in south-western Algeria.
The NGOs and civil society activists attending the symposium held on May 24 in Fez have called on the international community to work for the liberation of the Moroccans forcibly held on Algerian soil in Tindouf.
During the meeting, held under the theme “The role of world conscience in the liberation of the Moroccans sequestered in Tindouf,” participants underscored the plight Moroccan Sahrawis have been enduring for almost four decades in this remote part of the Algerian desert, completely isolated from the rest of the world.

The three-day meeting was sponsored by the Mediterranean Sustainable Development Association (Fez), the Association for the Moroccan Sahrawi women’s renaissance (Guelmim) and the Global Movement for the Sahara issue support (Laayoune).
The speakers stressed the need for coordinated action on the international arena to defend the national cause and the Moroccans sequestered in Tindouf.
Rachid Abdar from the Global Movement for the Sahara issue support said that parallel to the country’s official diplomacy, Moroccan NGOs and activists can play a key role in drawing the international community’s attention to the issue and making it realize the imperative necessity to protect the rights and freedoms of the people sequestered in Tindouf.
For her part, Assalka Suhail, from the Association for the Moroccan Sahrawi women’ renaissance, has called on all civil society activists and human rights defenders to denounce the gravity of the situation in the Tindouf camps and to defend the Sahrawis’ attachment to their Moroccan identity and citizenship.
All participants stressed unanimously that the Morocco-proposed plan to grant the Sahara an enlarged autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is a realistic and comprehensive solution to the Sahara conflict and will help put an end to the sufferings endured by the people in the Tindouf camps.