NGOs inquire about fate of disappeared persons in Tindouf camps

Two Europe-based NGOs have recently visited Mauritania where they met several officials to inquire about the fate of prisoners and missing persons in Tindouf camps, in Algeria.

Tindouf camps are controlled by the Algeria-backed Polisario guerrilla movement that is claiming the separation of Morocco's southern provinces, known as the Sahara. The former Spanish colony was retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid Accords signed with Spain and Mauritania.

Spokesman of the Swedish-based Association for the Defense of Persons Sequestered in Tindouf (ADESETI), Yahia Alamine, and spokesman of the Brussels-based "Lumière et Justice" association met with families of prisoners and missing persons who are originally from southern Moroccan provinces.

Representatives of the two NGOs listened to testimonies of several Mauritanian citizens that asked them to include in their research members of their families who went missing in Tindouf camps, the NGOs said in a release, noting that the number of the disappeared persons is estimated at 45.

ADESETI and "Lumiere et Justice" addressed a letter to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, urging the United Nations to step efforts to find out about the fate of the missing persons, and put an end to human rights violations perpetrated in the Tindouf camps.