Geneva: Polisario militia should be held accountable for war crime of child soldier recruitment

The Algeria-backed armed militia of Polisario should be prosecuted for war crimes committed by recruiting child soldiers in blatant violation of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention.

At a meeting held Thursday on the sidelines of the ongoing 55th session of UN Human Rights Council, participants urged the international community to take firm action to put an end to the recruitment and use of children as fighters by Polisario in Tindouf camps in violation of child’s rights to a normal and safe life.

Abdelkader Filali, Head of the International Research Center for the Prevention of Child Soldiers, said the Polisario members abduct children from their families and enlist them in paramilitary schools. They inculcate them violence and delusional of heroism, turning them into unbalanced persons suffering from major psychological disorders.

For his part, human rights activist Pedro Altamirano deplored the deteriorating living conditions in the Tindouf camps, the violation of the basic rights of children and the embezzlement of humanitarian aid by the Polisario leaders.

He urged Algeria to allow UNHRC to conduct a census of the Sahrawis held in the Tindouf camps, denouncing the obstruction of the return of the sequestered Sahrawis to their motherland, Morocco.

Human rights activist Gajmoula Boussif decried the abuse, ill-treatment, violence and sexual exploitation of Sahrawi women and girls by the Polisario militiamen in the camps in connivance with Algerian military officers, saying it is high time to hold accountable the Polisario separatists for the crimes they committed and bring them to justice.

The Geneva meeting was organized by the Independent Human rights Commission for North Africa.