UN Human Rights Council urged to look at immolation of two Sahraouis by Algerian Army

The immolation of two Sahraoui men by the Algerian army near the Polisario-run camps of Tindouf where Algeria has forsaken thousands of Sahraouis in inhuman living conditions was denounced again before the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The two men were immolated alive with gasoline by the Algerian army after it caught them digging for gold on October 19, 2020, Sahraoui activist Naji Moulay Lahsen told the HRC.

Their case highlights the summary executions and human rights violations suffered by thousands of Sahraouis in the Tindouf camps.

The UN Human Rights session was also marked with a series of calls by other rights activists who raised awareness about the surge in rights breaches by the Polisario against civilians in the camps in connivance with Algeria.

The Algerian army has on multiple occasion fired at anyone who leaves the camps, and the Polisario intensified its crackdown on dissident voices there amid a total media blackout.

From suppressing critical voices to aid embezzlement, the Algerian regime has turned a blind eye to calls by international rights groups to address the bleak human rights conditions in the camps.

The Polisario and the Algerian regime have recently been at the heart of an aid embezzlement scandal after the Polisairo-administered Red Crescent was found guilty of sending aid to stores run by the trade division of the militia to be sold instead of being distributed for free to the targeted vulnerable civilians.

Algeria has tried to down-play the scale of the chaos within the camps and the risk facing the population held against its will in the camps by imposing a media blackout.

 

Recently, a movement was created challenging the Polisairo’s obsolete stands and ideology and calling for openness to a political and mutually acceptable solution to the conflict breaking away with the stands of the Algerian host and sponsor.