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Rabat – The separatist Polisario Front has again sparked controversy as pictures and videos have gone viral on social media documenting the front’s deployment of child soldiers during UN Personal Envoy Staffan de Mistura’s visit to Tindouf camps.
Several of the now viral photos and videos depict children wearing military uniforms during de Mistura’s visit, confirming Polisario’s continued militarization of children in blatant disregard for UN conventions on the right of the child.
During de Mistura’s visit, the Polisario Front also dispatched children in the desert under a scorching sun to chant slogans the separatist group frequently repeats to defend its independence claims over Western Sahara.
Some of the children, reported to be aged below five years-old, were depicted carrying banners that they are possibly not able to read.
Just recently appointed as the UN Secretary General’s personal envoy for Western Sahara to salvage the fading “new momentum” in the UN-led political process, de Mistura arrived in the Tindouf camps on Saturday as part of his first regional visit since he took office in August.
De Mistura’s Tindouf visit came after his talks with senior Moroccan officials in Rabat on Thursday. He is also expected to hold meetings with Mauritanian and Algerian officials before concluding his regional trip.
The Polisario Front is often linked to controversies regarding its continued use of child soldiers in the Tindouf camps.
Several NGOs have denounced the group’s unabashed recruitment of children for its “defense forces,” describing the use of child soldiers as “human exploitation” and a brazen violation of international conventions on the rights of the child.
In November of last year, a hashtag went viral of the plight of children in the Polisario-controlled camps of Tindouf in Algeria.
Many internet users used the “Save the children of Tindouf” hashtag to urge the international community to intervene to end the separatist group’s “abuse” and “exploitation” of children for its political agenda. The hashtag was often accompanied by photos and videos showing children wearing military uniforms and holding rifles and machine guns they could barely carry.
Like last year, photos of baby-faced soldiers have led many people to take to social media in the aftermath of de Mistura’s visit to Tindouf to warn the international community about the Polisario Front’s alarming and defiant recruitment of children.
“I don’t understand how can the @UN allow Staffan de Mistura the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy to walk beside a child used as a military personnel. Does the UN Accept the use of children as military personnel? Because the image is very disturbing,” one commenter wrote on Twitter.
Morocco has long drawn attention to the prevalence of the recruitment of children in the Polisario’s militarized units in the Tindouf camps.
Omar Hilale, Morocco’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN, has repeatedly spoken about the concerning situation of children in Tindouf.
On February 12, 2021, Hilale stressed the need to hold accountable the countries that allow the use of child soldiers in armed conflicts.
As well as vigorously condemning the separatist group’s use of children in its militarized units, the Moroccan diplomat called on Algeria, the main sponsor of the Polisario Front, to stop condoning the separatist front’s making of “potential terrorists” off of focrcibly conscripted children.
Algeria’s support of Polisario’s continued recruitment of child soldiers contradicts the country’s international commitments, especially the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, Hilale argued.
He stressed, “States that shelter, arm, finance, and train armed groups which recruit children bear the same criminal responsibility as these groups and must be held accountable by the international community.”
