Moroccan ngos hand UN chiefs dossier on ordeal of persons sequestered in Tindouf

Activists of several Moroccan ngos handed on Friday to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Mary Robinson, a dossier describing in detail the ordeal of the populations sequestered in the Polisario-controlled camps in Tindouf, south-western Algeria.

A delegation of ngos members, including Ms Samira Yassni, permanent representative of the women's international association at the European council and coordinator of this Ngo for North Africa, and Said El Bikri, from the executive board of the Moroccan Human Rights Organization (OMDH), handed the dossier to Annan personally when he ended his address before the 58th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission under way here.

The delegation handed a similar dossier including testimonies of victims of human rights violations in the Tindouf camps (stronghold of the Polisario in south-western Algeria), and photos of their bodies still bearing the scars of torture to Ms Robinson.

The dossier had been compiled by the committee for Sahrawi families reunion (COREFASA), the Association of the Parents of Sahraoui Victims of Repression in the Tindouf Camps (PASVERTI), and Al Massira Association for the defense of the rights of Moroccan prisoners and sequestered persons in the Tindouf camps. The dossier includes three publications, namely "The Truth about the Polisario prisons in the south of Algeria or the systematic violation of Human Rights," "maintaining of the refugees under illegal confinement in the south of Algeria and embezzlement of humanitarian aid" and "the sufferings of Moroccan pows in the south of Algeria."

The ngos delegates who are, in their majority, survivors of the horror of the Tindouf camps, held meetings with several UN executives, newsmen, delegates of international and regional ngos, including Amnesty International and the World Organization against Torture, and governmental delegations to the commission's 58th session. They briefed their interlocutors on the tragic situation of the Moroccans forcibly detained in these camps and handed them copies of the dossier on the human rights violation committed by the polisario gang.