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Rabat – A new report highlights the dire situation in which the Sahrawis living in the Tindouf camps are experiencing, due to the embezzlement of medical aid and equipment.
Tindouf’s Autonomy Support Forum (FORSATIN) released a report last week warning against the severe health crisis in the camps, as a result of the “smuggling” of medical equipment and supplies directed to the people in the camps.
“As soon as they arrive and are pictured, these devices evaporate as if they never existed,” FORSATIN warned.
According to a report, medicine shortages have been deteriorating for days at the “Smara” camp hospital in Tindouf.
FORSATIN quoted a doctor working in the camp hospital, who confirmed that the shortage of medicine had rendered the situation “catastrophic.”
The same source said the situation is not just a matter of scarcity or shortages only,, warning that medical professionals in the area struggle to assess the cases that flock to the camps for hospitalization.
“The crisis is due to the presence of a gang” at the Polisario leadership, the doctor said.
According to him, these gangs work for their leaders who are active in a number of industries and “sell everything” at hand.
The doctor condemned the embezzlement of humanitarian supplies, including food aid, that several NGOs provided to help people living in a dire condition in these camps.
The NGOs, according to the doctor, send assistance in the form of food and medical supplies that are “enough to cover the needs for years and not only weeks.”
“Medicines have become remarkably smuggled from the ‘hospital’ and from its pharmacy to be embezzled.”
The embezzled medical supplies sell for double their original value, instead of being donated to the camp as part of humanitarian aid intended for the struggling Sahrawi population.
This is not the first report that links the Polisario Front to the embezzlement of food and medical supplies.
A report by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in 2015 exposed the embezzlement of humanitarian aid intended for refugees in the Polisario-run camps.
The report covers the 2003-2007 period, showing that separatist group leadership has long been directly involved in selling humanitarian aid provided in the Mauritanian and sub-Saharan markets, for the purpose of buying weapons.
The materials that were sold included blankets, medicines, and construction material intended to help the Tindouf camps’ population that are living in extreme poverty.
