Passport for Freedom to drum up support for release of Moroccan POWs in Algeria

European Parliament's initiative "Passport for Freedom" will launch an all-out campaign to raise international public opinion awareness on the fate of the hundreds of Moroccan prisoners of war (POWs) still detained in the Tindouf Camps (southwestern Algeria) by the separatist movement Polisario.

The announcement was made at a press conference, in Rabat Friday, by Dominique Rambaud, coordinator of the "Passport for Freedom" initiative at the European Parliament.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 514 Moroccan POWs are still held captive by the Polisario which is claiming independence of the Sahara, a former Spanish colony retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid Accords signed with Spain and Mauritania.

The Euro-deputy said several actions will be launched, beginning September, in the 25 member countries of the European Union, in particular a solidarity chain made up of Moroccan committees of support.

The UN and the ICRC have been urging the Algerian-backed separatist movement to release those prisoners some of whom held captives for nearly three decades, despite the UN-brokered ceasefire concluded in 1991.

The fate of these prisoners was also brought up at a conference held Saturday in Mantes La Jolie (outskirt of Paris) by the Alliance of Sahara natives in Europe and local associations, to denounce human rights violations in those camps.

Participants lashed out at the Polisario leaders accused of embezzlement of international assistance granted by the international community to population held against their will in Tindouf.