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A number of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are raising concerns about the persistent ongoing inhumane conditions in the Tindouf camps.
Taking part in the session of the 60th UN Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday, the NGOs deplored the slavery practices in the Polisario-governed camps in southwestern Algeria.
Legal expert Lucia Ferreyra Perea exposed the reality of hereditary slavery and racial segregation that continues in these camps administered by the leadership of the separatist group opposing Morocco’s sovereignty over its southern provinces.
Speaking to the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, the expert brought up the sad reality that refugees in the Tindouf camps are living in desperate, reprehensible conditions.
Perea, a representative of the Independent Center for Research and Dialogue Initiatives (CIRID), drew attention to the case of a young Sahraoui named Mohammed Salem, whom authorities in the camps prevented from marrying because of his “servile” family origins.
Deploring the situation as a “flagrant violation of human dignity,” Perea urged the Council to launch an independent investigation into the abuses.
Mostafa Maelainine of the International Committee for Respect and Application of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (CIRAC) echoed these concerns, presenting testimonies from former refugees who fled the camps.
He further described systematic discrimination against populations considered of servile descent, accusing the Polisario of maintaining these practices to sustain social and political control.
“These violations are in direct breach of international conventions on slavery abolition,” Maelainine said, calling on the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights to conduct an on-site visit and include the findings in his next report.
Both speakers stressed the urgent need to safeguard victims’ rights to freedom, dignity, and justice.
Their interventions add to previous NGOs’ findings about the extremely concerning human rights situation in the Polisario-ruled camps.
A recent UN report revealed a critical malnutrition situation that captives in the camps undergo.
The UN investigation notably exposed catastrophic malnutrition rates in the Polisario-run, Algerian-controlled Tindouf camps, revealing that Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) has reached 13.6%.
