Two inhabitants of the Tindouf camps reported were killed by Algerian army

PERSISMA – According to a complaint sent to the president of the international criminal Court in The Hague two people among the inhabitants of the Tindouf camps, namely MM. Khatri Ould Ould Hammadha Khandoud and Mohamed Ould Ould Aliyenne Abbih were killed, and several wounded, by the Algerian army, at the borders between Algeria Mauritania. As a result a group of members of the Rguibat Sellam tribe in Laayoune, accused in this complaint the Algerian army as well Polisario for committing, on January 5, 2014, murder with premeditation against two sahraouis refugees in the Algerian territory. This assassination triggered a large movement of protest in the said camps in Algeria.

Several sources reported also that, the leaders of the Polisario had repressed this nascent revolt in the Tindouf camps, which coincided with the visit to the region of the Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Sahara, Christopher Ross. Thus, these sources said that nearly 400 people held on 23 and 24 last January, an event that led to the taking control of security headquarters camp “Smara”. These events, attended by women and children, claimed that light should be shed on the mistreatment of civilians who were violently repressed by the Polisario militia.

Fighting for the freedom of movement, Abdelhaye Liman and Lmaarouf Ould Hamdi, who camped in front of the UNHCR office in Rabouni, started indefinite hunger strike. Their claims aimed at lifting of travel restrictions imposed on them and on other inhabitants of the camps. Because of claiming their rights, they were persecuted by the Polisario which prohibit them all contacts with the outside camps. Their meeting with the director of the local UNHCR office has not led to any solution, and the head of UNHCR in Algeria declined their request for a meeting in the same way.

This dramatic humanitarian situation in the Tindouf camps recalls the following observations:

• the rejection by the inhabitants of the Tindouf camps of systematic violations of their human Rights by peaceful means in order to attract the attention of the international community to their daily suffering and abuse inflicted on them by the Polisario.

• This situation reveals, once again, the opaque internal structures of the Polisario, characterized by oligarchic, totalitarian and repressive system that promotes stagnation and individual interests in power at the expense of the suffering of populations. That’s why anger continues to mount in the camps fueled further by the current hunger strike and the murder of two young Saharawis.

• This comes after the withdrawal of the recognition of the so called “SADR”, in recent months, by many countries, including Panama, Haiti, Paraguay, and the Republic of Mauritius and at a time when a report of the International Centre for Terrorism Studies (ICTS) under the American think tank “Potomac Institute for Policy Studies,” calling for the dismantling of the Polisario militias and the release of people detained in the Tindouf camps which become a breeding ground for al-Qaeda recruiters and traffickers of all kinds and a threat to regional security.

• The protection of the population in the camps needs once again more pressure from for the international community to make the host country, Algeria, accept the conduct of a census of the populations of the Tindouf camps, in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions.