Ambassador Omar Hilale, permanent representative of Morocco to the United Nations, expressed his satisfaction after the vote of the UN Security Council extending the mandate of Minurso, the UN observation mission and was indignant at the use of child soldiers by the Polisario.
The diplomat took the opportunity of this vote of resolution 2602 to show the press photos of child soldiers used by the Polisario as cannon fodder, in order to reveal the real faces of the separatist militias.
According to Algerian sources who requested anonymity and consulted by MoroccoLatestNews, the Polisario effectively uses children as soldiers and trains them from an early age to take up arms. Women are also trained militarily, we are told. Children are also sent to Latin American countries to professionalize themselves in the ranks of the guerrillas, add our sources.
Exposing photos of children recruited to become Polisario soldiers, Omar Hilale claimed that this was evidence of the recruitment of children for military service. These are the same tactics used by terrorist groups such as Al Qaida, Hilale stressed.
In the photos, one could indeed see children in military uniform and carrying heavy weapons. Omar Hilale is known to be a strong advocate for the cause of children and the fight against the use of children in armed conflict.
At the end of the vote on Friday, for which Russia and Tunisia abstained, the Moroccan diplomat indicated that the Security Council had “once again decided that the objective of the UN process is to reach a political solution. , realistic, pragmatic, sustainable, mutually acceptable and based on compromise to this regional dispute ”.
Omar Hilale also congratulated Staffan de Mitsura, the new envoy of the UN Secretary General for the Sahara dossier, on his appointment. The diplomat is due to start work on October 1 as part of the roundtable process to find a political solution to the conflict.
“The Security Council has granted Mr. de Mistura all the fundamentals to start, carry out and succeed in his mission”, he declared, assuring that Morocco is confident ” that his diplomatic experience and his UN impartiality are “assets that will enable it to carry out its mandate of facilitating the political process”.
On another note, Omar Hilale noted that the Security Council has once again welcomed the achievements and efforts of the Kingdom in the promotion and protection of human rights in its Saharan provinces, “inflicting thus a scathing disavowal to Algeria and its polisario ”which is exhausted with millions of dollars to disguise and to misinform about the enjoyment by the populations of the Moroccan Sahara of the fullness of their rights.
Recall that the United Nations Security Council decided, Friday, to extend for one year the mandate of MINURSO, while confirming, once again, the preeminence of the Moroccan autonomy initiative to resolve the artificial conflict. around the Moroccan Sahara.
The Security Council “decides to extend the mandate of MINURSO until October 31, 2022”, we read in the text of the resolution presented by the United States.
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