ICRC briefed on case of Moroccan POWs detained in southern Algeria

Moroccan Justice Minister, Mohamed Bouzoubaa, met, here Tuesday, with officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross whom he briefed on the tragic situation of 408 Moroccans still held by the Polisario in the Tindouf camps, southern Algeria.

The official who took part on Monday in the 61st of the United Nations Human Rights commission deplored the tragic situation of 408 Moroccans are still held captive in those camps by the Algeria-backed Polisario secessionists who want to separate the Sahara from the rest of the Kingdom.

He stressed that the death of a former Moroccan prisoner shortly after his release on January 22 together with a companion, produces evidence to the despicable conditions in which these prisoners are held for over a quarter of a century.

The ICRC chairman pledged to carry on efforts for the total, unconditional and immediate release of the world's oldest serving prisoners of war, stressing that this is a "priority" issue for the international organization.

The justice minister thanked the international organization for its efforts to obtained the liberation of these prisoners whose detention, he insisted, is " a blatant breach to the international humanitarian law norms."

Earlier the minister reiterated Morocco's "support to the constant efforts of the UN secretary general and his special representative to reach a political, negotiated and lasting solution to the artificial conflict over the Moroccan Sahara."

Such a solution should respect Morocco's territorial integrity and sovereignty over its southern provinces, the Sahara, which was retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under the Madrid agreements with Spain, the former colonial power.