Rabat - The military and enclosed nature of the Tindouf Camps in the Algerian territory is "a unique case in the humanitarian world" and as a host country, Algeria assumes a political responsibility as well as legal and humanitarian duties, Moroccan Foreign minister Taib Fassi Fihri said.
"The military and enclosed nature of these camps is in fact a unique case in the humanitarian world," said Fassi Fihri in a letter to the UN secretary-general.

"This situation calls upon the human conscience and cannot be tolerated, three decades later, by the international community which clearly bans the presence of armed individuals in the refugees' camps and calls for the free movement which is denied to the Tindouf population," he added.

Stressing the humanitarian dimension of the Sahara issue, Fassi Fihri said that this aspect "requires some time to assess the collective, tragic and singular situation of the populations held captive in the Algerian Tindouf camps."

In this letter, Morocco's Foreign Minister underlined the legitimacy to question the legal referential that could be applied to these camps: which laws are applied to this part of the Algerian territory regarding its civilian populations? The usual rules and regulations enacted by the Algerian state on its national territory? Or the special ones granted to an armed group, the polisario?"

"As a host country, Algeria assumes a political responsibility as well as legal and humanitarian duties, the least of which is to allow the UNHCR to carry out its mandate to protect those vulnerable populations, starting with the right of individual questioning and registering, which should lead to granting a free consented return," the minister added, pointing out that "the political considerations put forward by Algeria to weasel out of its obligations in this field are illegal, immoral and humanly unbearable."

 

Source : Maghreb Arab Press