Two NGOs call for shedding light on fate of hundreds of missing persons in Tindouf camps

Two non-governmental organizations have called the international community to take action to shed light on the fate of hundreds of persons reported missing in the Tindouf camps, in southern Algeria.

The association of parents of repression victims in the Tindouf camps (Pasverti) and the Sahrawi human rights association (Asaddh) urged the international committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Amnesty International to endeavor to put an end to the plight of Moroccan prisoners of war detained by the Polisario.

Despite a UN-monitored cease-fire decreed in 1991 between Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario which claims the separation of Moroccan southern provinces from the rest of Morocco, over 400 Moroccans are still detained in the camps of Tindouf. They are considered as the world's longest-serving prisoners of war as some of them have been held for more than 25 years.

The two NGOs had also referred last August a memorandum on the subject to the United Nations action group in Geneva.