African Union joins UN in urging census of people held in Polisario-run Tindouf camps

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) urged all African countries to cooperate with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR including in terms of refugee protection and documentation.

In a statement on October 27, the PSC stressed the need for African countries to cooperate with the UN agency on refugee documentation to avoid political exploitation and embezzlement of humanitarian aid.

The call echoes similar stands by the UNHCR and the UN Security Council which called on Algeria to conduct a head-count of the people held against their will in the Polisario-run camps.

Morocco has on multiple occasions decried the lack of a census of the population abandoned on Algerian territory to the ruthless Polisario militias that trades in their suffering.

Algeria has been inflating figures of the Tindouf camps population in attempt to use them as political pawns to serve the separatist thesis of its Polisario proxies.

Human rights watchdogs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international, have on multiple occasions decried the inhumane living conditions in Tindouf camps, where thousands are deprived of their right to return to their homeland, Morocco.

Recently, the World Food Program, in its latest report on the region, deplored the malnutrition in the camps and the fact that the Algerian regime denies it control of food distribution, hinting at the practice of embezzlement of foodstuff echoing EU alerts a decade ago.

Algeria’s obstinacy to refuse a head-count of the population of the Polisario-run camps prompted the EU to reduce aid sent to these camps in a bid to curb humanitarian aid diversion.

The decision was taken following a report by the EU anti-fraud office (OLAF) denouncing the embezzlement of humanitarian aid by the Polisario leadership and Algerian officials.

Therefore, the European Commission decided to cut aid commensurately with the estimated number of 90,000 people instead of the inflated 165,000 people put forward by the Polisario and Algeria in an attempt to sell the idea of the existence of a “Sahraoui People” with a “republic” in exile.

Polisario defectors estimate the figure of the population in the camps at around 40,000 including many non-Sahrawis.

Carrying out a head-count of the population held in Tindouf will enable international aid agencies to assess the needs of the population and will also pave the way for the camp’s dwellers to obtain refugee status. This status will grant them the right to return to their homeland Morocco or at least the right to freely choose their country of asylum, options that Algeria and the Polisario dread the most as they continue to trade in the suffering of Sahraouis living in abject conditions.