W. Sahara in the International Media
 
New York Times publishes testimonies on 'harsh living conditions' in Tindouf camps
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The US daily "New York Times" on Wednesday published an article about the "harsh living conditions" in Tindouf camps, southwestern Algeria,The daily cites the testimonies of members of a delegation of former sequestered people in Tindouf camps, who paid a visit to the United States early May to sensitize the US officials, congressmen and media on the harsh living conditions in these camps,"New York Times" underlines that the delegation members described the camps as "corruption-riddled prisons." Cited by the paper, Said Abderahman described how he escaped with his pregnant wife from Tindouf camps, as Polisario police chased them through a thicket of land mines.


The couple also confirmed that the populations in the camps do not receive all humanitarian aid the international agencies give.


The separatist movement of Polisario lays claims to Morocco's Southern Provinces, known as the Sahara, a territory that Morocco had retrieved from the Spanish rule under the Madrid Accord, signed in 1975 with Spain and Mauritania. A year later, Polisario lured thousands of Moroccan Sahrawis into joining it in the Tindouf camps where they have been held ever since.


Another member of the delegation told of a holding center for unwed mothers, cordoned off from relatives and friends, while another one told about the fact that the camps’ leaders smuggled away foreign aid, even as residents of the camps starved, adds the paper.


Another Sahrawi, Brahim al-Selem, said he had to pay a smuggler last August to flee after being imprisoned for speaking out against the Polisario Front, says the daily. 


Quoting executive director of the Moroccan American Center for Policy, Robert M. Holley, the paper says the goal to bring the delegation to the United States was to expose the “severe restrictions and harsh conditions in the camps.” “The lives of these people, daily, are being destroyed,” said Mr. Holley.

 

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