Mustapha Salma on hunger strike in protest against the Polisario and the UNHCR

By Youssef El Kaidi

Fez – The Sahraoui activist Mustapha Weld Sidi Mouloud who is exiled from Tindouf Camps in Algeria for two years and a half so far in Mauritania declared that he will enter in an open hunger strike in front of the delegation of the High Commission for Refugee Aid in Nouakchott starting from May 20^th, until the settlement of his status.

Mustapha Salma said in a statement issued on Sunday, May 19 that he made this decision after exhausting all the means of legal communication with the parties concerned with the settlement of his status at the level of the offices of the High Commission of Refugee Aid and the authorities of Mauritania. He noted that he hasn’t yet got any positive response concerning his request to get a passport and his right and the right of his family to reunite and live together in normal circumstances.

The decision of hunger strike comes, according to the statement, “in waiting for the High Commission of Refugee Aid to fulfill its commitment to finding a solution which may bring my family together after two years and a half of separation and sufferance following my prevention from returning to my children in the Sahraoui refugee camps on the Algerian territory and my exile to Mauritania.”

Mustapha Salma held all the parties concerned with his plight responsible for forcing him to take such a decision and for what might result out of it “due to their procrastination in the search of a plausible solution and the ignorance they pay to the inhumane conditions that [he]and [his] children undergo.” He appealed to people of conscience in the world to support his right to mobility and the right of his family to reunite with him.

Following his “explicit support” of the Moroccan proposal meant to resolve the conflict in the Sahara on the basis of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty; Mr. Mustapha Salma Weld Sidi Mouloud was kidnapped on September 21^st, 2010 by the militias of Polisario upon arrival at the border checkpoint leading to the Tindouf camps and was held in a secret location.

The Sahraoui militant, who served as the General Inspector of the police of Polisario, was released at the end of 2010 and handed to the High Commission of Refugee Aid in Mauritania after an international campaign for his release.