Moroccan HR activists shed light on human tragedy in Tindouf Camps

Moroccan Human Rights Organisation (OMDH) on Thursday briefed international human rights organisations on the human tragedy in the Polisario-controlled Tindouf camps, south-western Algeria.

OMDH delegates to the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Commission, Youssef El Bouhairi and Saïd El Bikri shed light on the inhumane conditions of Moroccans native of the Sahara held against their will by the Algeria-backed separatists in total scorn of the international Humanitarian Law, particularly the 3rd Geneva convention and the security council's multiple resolutions which explicitly and clearly call for the total, unconditional and immediate release of all Moroccan prisoners.

The OMDH delegates also briefed the audience on the broad lines of the legislative reforms to adapt Moroccan laws to international covenants signed by Morocco and consolidate the rule of law, particularly the Family Code enacted this year in the Kingdom to establish gender equality and the new Labour Code designed to better protect the labour rights.

They also submitted to the UN commission a document reiterating Morocco's support to the constant efforts of the UN Secretary General and of his special representative to the Sahara to reach a political, negotiated and lasting solution to the artificial conflict over the Moroccan Sahara. The former Spanish colony was retrieved by the North African country in 1975 under the Madrid Accords.

They recalled that 408 Moroccan POWs are still held captive in the Tindouf camps, by the Polisario secessionists, who want to separate the Moroccan Southern Provinces, known as the Sahara, from the rest of the Kingdom.