NGO informs UN on Human rights violations in southern Algeria

The Sweden-based association for the defense of the population sequestered in Tindouf (ADESETI) informed Monday the UN on human rights breaches and violations against people sequestered in Tindouf camps (southwestern Algeria).

The association sent a letter to Brigitte Lacroix, officer at the Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, reporting on the tragic situation in the camps and the inhuman way populations are treated in the camps by the Algeria-backed "separatists leaders."

ADESETI was referring in the message to the Polisario separatist group that is claiming the independence of the Moroccan southern provinces.

The NGO's spokesman, Yahia Alamin, told MAP the message documents crimes that have been perpetrated for several years against hundreds of people, some of whom died because of torture and the barbarous treatment in the prisons of the secessionist group.

Alamin said the UN official was informed about the breaches of Polisario that exploits the sufferings of the sequestered populations to net more international humanitarian aid that is eventually embezzled.

Several international NGOs, most importantly "France Libertes" which conducted an eye-opener field investigation during which it found how the prisoners are doing forced labor and how the humanitarian aid never reaches its actual recipients, have been denouncing the Polisario breaches, especially the embezzlement of humanitarian aid destined to the sequestered populations. The French association, led by Danielle Mitterrand, spouse of former French president Francois Mitterand, also condemned the release in small groups of the Moroccan prisoners of war (POW), some of whom have been detained for 28 years despite the UN mandated ceasefire proclaimed in 1991.

ADESETI spokesman said he asked for the intervention of the UN high commissioner to put an end to the suffering that the populations of the camps have been enduring for three decades.

In the same connection, a delegation representing associations for the defense of human rights in the Sahara arrived Monday in Seville (southern Spain) to launch an awareness campaign in Andalusia on human rights breaches committed by the Polisario.

The delegation mainly comprises former members of the separatist group that were victims of torture in Tindouf.