Latin American NGOs denounce Polisario’s stranglehold on Tindouf Camps

Latin American NGOs, forming the Global Africa Latina Foundation, have denounced the Polisario’s military stranglehold on the Tindouf camps where the populations are held in permanent captivity.

“The military stranglehold on these camps and the manipulation of international humanitarian aid are keeping the populations in permanent captivity,” the Latin American foundation deplored in a statement issued on Thursday.

The Foundation underlined the panic, despair and sufferings of the populations held captive in the camps, where the situation is worsening with the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

These populations, which distrust the polisario leaders, are struggling to survive by the day.

The foundation quoted sources as saying that the camps populations are very anxious about a possible large-scale outbreak of coronavirus and the damage it may cause in this lawless area, explaining that, amid the pandemic, Algeria has given over all control of the camps to Polisario.

Spotlighting human rights violations within the camps and the inhumane conditions in which the Sahrawis are held “captive,” the foundation underlined that residents who have contracted COVID-19 “are locked up in tiny isolation rooms, in the absence of sanitation and equipment essential for their daily needs.”

With already scarce food, water, and medical supplies in Tindouf, and with the continuing embezzlement of humanitarian aid by the Polisario, the foundation warned that the desperate situation in the camps will get worse as the pandemic continues to spread in North Africa.

The Polisario leadership have left the camps populations “destitute and abandoned to their fate,” the foundation wrote.

The Latin American foundation also expressed concern over the plight of political prisoners who are deprived of all contact with their children, brothers, parents or friends.

“Arresting and sentencing seems to be the basic scenario,” and prisoners are subject to both physical and psychological torture on a daily basis.

The Global Africa Latina Foundation called on the international community and human rights organizations to intervene to save the “destitute camps populations, abandoned to their fate” amid a devastating pandemic.

The Foundation urged the United Nations and the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to investigate the plight of the vulnerable populations of Tindouf, held under the tyranny of the Polisario and its mentors.