Sahara native woman deplores 'unspeakable' situation in Tindouf camps

The situation in the Polisario-controlled camps in Tindouf (southwest Algeria) is "unspeakable," and its impacts on the Sahrawi population are beyond measurement, noted Moroccan Sahara native, Ms. Khouira Bent Fekkou who rallied Morocco on Sunday after fleeing those camps known as Lahmada camps.

During a ceremony organized by her family to celebrate her return, Bent Fekkou, who has been detained in the camps for 29 years, highlighted that the Moroccan detainees in the Tindouf camps "live in awful and deplorable conditions, and endure the worst sufferings."

Polisario is an Algeria-backed movement that claims, since 1976, the separation of Morocco's southern provinces, the Sahara, from the rest of the kingdom. Morocco had retrieved the former Spanish colony under the Madrid Accords concluded, in 1975, with Madrid and Nouakchott.

Bent Fekkou stressed that, besides the extremely harsh weather conditions that reign in Lahmada camps, the Moroccan detainees, youth, children and women, endure the inhumane practices of the Polisario separatists.

She underlined that the sole wish of the Moroccans sequestered in Tindouf is to "put an end to this situation, and joint their families in Morocco."

Bent Fekkou lashed out at Polisario leaders who, she said, lead a "totally different life because of the embezzlement of the humanitarian help sent to the sequestered."