Calls for return of Sahrawi children deported to Cuba

The Moroccan Committee for the Reunion of Sahrawi families, called over the weekend on the international community to act for the return to the homeland of Sahrawi children deported to Cuba and liberation of those sequestered in the Tindouf camps (south-western Algeria).

The call was made by Ms. Yasni Samira, who is in charge of the committee international relations, at a meeting held by African Non-Governmental organizations in Dakar part of preparations for an international conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, to be staged next August in South Africa.

Ms. Yasni decried the inhuman conditions of the 10,000 Sahrawis in three Cuban Islands. She called for the implementation of all mechanisms on persons protection, especially the convention on the suppression of human trafficking and the convention on the protection of women and children in difficult situations and in armed conflicts.

She argued that deporting Sahrawi children is part of a the Polisario strategy to dismember Sahrawi families and hold them hostages.

For the human rights activist, it is high time for the African community, which has been led astray by the Polisario, to understand the tragedy of these children, who are subjected to hard labor in sugar canes plantations, in cigar factories and exploited by sexual tourism webs.

These children, most of whom were deported at the age of six, are regularly submitted to an ideological indoctrination, Ms. Yasni said, adding the vulnerable minors have lost all attachment to the families, the Polisario being presented to them as their sole family.

The Dakar meeting was attended by some 20 African NGOs, including the Moroccan Human Rights Organization.