UN Security Council commends Morocco’s human rights monitoring body in Sahara

UN Security Council commended in its latest resolution on Sahara the work of the National Human Rights Council in the southern cities of Dakhla and Laayoune.

The resolution, which extends the mandate of the UN mission in Sahara by another year, welcomed “steps and initiatives taken by Morocco, the role played by the Commissions of the National Human Rights Council in Dakhla and Laayoune, and Morocco’s interaction with Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council.”

The UN Security Council, however, expressed concern at the “continued hardships” experienced by the population held in the Polisario-run camps in Algeria.

The resolution also stressed the need for a head-count of the camps population.

The Polisario leadership has indulged for decades in putting forward inflated figures without allowing for a census of the population.

Numbers have been inflated in order to receive commensurate humanitarian aid which ends embezzled by Polisario and Algerian officials.

Several donors including the EU scaled down the aid sent to Tindouf camps as the Polisario and Algeria continue obstinately to bar such a census.