Morocco decries UNHCR indifference to tragedy of Tindouf POWs

Morocco decried the indifference of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the tragedy experienced by Moroccan POWs in the Tindouf camps (southwestern Algeria).

Speaking Wednesday at a meeting of the UNHCR executive committee, Morocco's ambassador to the UN, Omar Hilale, said the report by French Foundation "France Libertes" sheds light on the inhuman detention conditions of the Moroccan POWs, the longest-held in the world.

France Libertes, led by Danielle Miterrand, widow of French president, had long supported the separatists against Morocco before conducting an eye-opener investigation in the camps last April. It has now suspended all its aid to the camps' populations after it found out the tons of humanitarian aid sent to the population were embezzled by the Polisario leaders.

The atrocities perpetrated by the separatists, on the soil of a UNHCR executive committee member-country, have been denounced by my country for years, Hilale said, wondering why Algeria and the Polisario refuse a census of the camps' populations. The diplomat further criticized the forced labor of these detainees who are even exploited in projects financed by humanitarian organizations, stressing that at this point "the humanitarian looses its humanism."