African countries should put pressure on Algeria to end slavery in Tindouf camps

The underreported plight of enslaved black people continues in the Polisario-run Tindouf camps, where Algerian authorities abandoned thousands to the mercy of a separatist militia that trades in their sufferings.

Slavery is the least reported crime against humanity in the camps where the population held against their will are subjected to harsh living conditions coupled with repression, forced disappearance, and an inability to freely move or express dissent.

Little has changed since Human Rights Watch in 2014 rang the alarm bell to the existence of slavery practices in the camps.

The report cites the Freedom and Progress Association, a civil society group formed by mainly dark-skinned Sahrawis in the Tindouf camps in June 2008, which has documented cases of slavery.

“One case of alleged slavery in the Polisario-controlled areas of Western Sahara involved two young children, a brother and sister who, their parents say, were abducted from the Tindouf refugee camps by a family of Sahrawi herders,” a 2014 Human Rights Watch report said.

“The family allegedly abused the children physically and forced them to work without pay helping tend livestock for over a decade, until their release in 2013,” it said.

In 2009, two Australian journalists with the Sydney Morning Herald were invited to the camps by the Polisario representative in Australia with the aim to carry out a propaganda coverage in favor of the polisario leadership. While in the camps, the two journalists noticed slavery practices and decided to secretly film a documentary on the ordeal of black people in the camps.

The film, dubbed Stolen, exposes modern-day slavery in the refugee camps of Tindouf through telling the story of a Sahrawi girl called Fatim Sellami, herself a slave, who was reunited with her mother after 35 years of separation with the help of the United Nations.

Slavery is persisting in the camps in a full media blackout by Algeria which prevents independent reporters from visiting the camps.

Most media visits to Tindouf camps are a set up organized by Algerian authorities and their Polisario proxies to spread anti-Moroccan propaganda.

While African and Caribbean countries are gathering momentum to launch a tribunal that looks into slavery legacy and demand reparations, a common enslavement practice is taking place in full sight of Algerian authorities.

Many Polisario supporters among Africa’s failed states such as Zimbabwe or the corrupted South Africa elites ignore that dark-skinned Africans are treated as slaves in the Polisario-run camps.

Had president Ramaphosa, or his predecessor Jacob Zuma or even the deceased Mugabe been born in the Tindouf camps, there are high chances they could end up as slaves living in abject conditions.

Algeria has often been held accountable for the continuation of slavery in the Tindouf camps, where it seems to have abandoned its sovereignty to a separatist militia that uses thousands of innocent Sahrawis as political pawns.