Human rights associations hail EU decision to investigate aid embezzlement in Tindouf camps

A group of human rights-advocacy associations in the Sahara has welcomed the decision by the European Humanitarian Aid Office to send a fact-finding mission to the Polisario-controlled Tindouf camps in Southwestern Algeria to investigate allegations of humanitarian shipments embezzlement.

The group praised the investigation decision, as a move likely to alleviate the sufferings of populations sequestered in the camps, and starved by their torturers who continue to amass wealth on the humanitarian aid, they said.

They also urged the fact-finding mission to conduct an accurate census of the populations, forcibly held there, and identify recipients of aid, in order to thwart the confusing game played by the Algeria-Backed Polisario, which minimizes figures when it comes to identification for a potential referendum, and amplifies them to swindle humanitarian aid donors.

The credit in this move was given to all those who have fought to "unveil the flagrant misuse of humanitarian assistance, originally sent to the population and ends up in the pocket of torturers," they said.

The group of associations also asked the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, to act for an end of the tragic situation of thousands of Moroccans detained in the camps, deploring that hundreds had died under torture.

Thousands of innocent people continue, for almost decades now, to live a plight in the camps where human rights are breached on a daily basis, the association deplored in a message to the UN secretary general on the international human rights day, marked on Dec.10.