The deterioration of social and economic conditions in Tindouf is not the only cause for concern in the camps for the sequestered in Tindouf. There is another more serious one still and it relates to slavery towards the sequestered Sahrawi people.
This sly slavery that is abominably trying to establish, as an institution Inside the Tindouf camps, the leadership of the Polisario has become a daily reality for many Sahrawis. This modern-day phenomenon of emancipation that the Polisario tries to conceal by all means in order to avoid international criticism.
The separatists in the direction of the camps repress anyone who dares to speak about it and privilege the tribal affiliation which constitutes the social base of the camps, also, they are made responsible on several occasions for infringements and violence to human rights. It’s as simple as that, the darker the complexion, the more one plunges into the world of forced submission without any right.
Also faced with this state of affairs, human rights activists have called on the United Nations to open an investigation into the issue of slavery in the camps. The Forum of supporters of autonomy in the camps of Tindouf, known as “Forsatin” indicated that on the basis of tribal affiliation, privileges or humanitarian aid are obtained (travel abroad, studies, medical treatment, obtaining positions and responsibilities, etc.). The forum pointed out that this is “the miserable human reality of the camps”.
It is made up of violations of all kinds, injustice, discrimination, exclusion and slavery. Forsatin, to substantiate recently posted a video, “a distress call from a young man who suffers from slavery inside the camps. It is a case of slavery so to speak documented as there are many in these places. The young man, in the prime of his life, whose name is Salem Ould Abdine, “revealed that the Polisario refused to provide him with all the identity documents in order to register in the name of his real father”.
According to the video testimony published by the Forum of supporters of autonomy in the Tindouf camps, the young Sahrawi was the subject of “death threats and violent beatings from the one who enslaved him”, while that he demanded justice and his release. After he confirmed that he owned it, the “master” forced his real father to pay money in exchange for his release. The publication pointed out that “the camps are full of similar cases of slavery.
But these are unspoken taboos, and there have been many ways to expose the reality of slavery and enslavement in the camps, including a collective initiative to document films that played a role important in revealing and disseminating the reality of the phenomenon of slavery inside the camps, including the documentary film Stolen, released in 2009, directed by the Bolivian Violeta Ayala and the Australian Dan Fallshaw, which focuses on the living conditions of the sequestered living in the Tindouf camps. The documentary claims that some of them are victims of “modern slavery”.
In this context, El Abbas El Ouardi, professor of political science and international relations at Mohammed V University in Rabat, told MoroccoLatestNews: “ Morocco takes regular steps to expose allegations by the Algerian military establishment in the Tindouf camps, which are witnessing widespread internal tensions. Breast leaks on social media platforms say a lot about the fact “.
El Ouardi added that “ Morocco has provided irrefutable proof of the disastrous situation in the Tindouf camps, in which the Polisario militias have taken away all individual and collective rights of the kidnapped or detained in flagrant contradiction with respect for human rights “.
The academic went on to say that “ slavery has long spread in the Tindouf camps, worsening an already dire human rights situation “. He further pointed out that “theMorocco has always denounced this situation in the camps before the Human Rights Council in Geneva”.
El Abbas El Ouardi appeals to the need to respect international legitimacy and human rights charters, and explained that ” the Kingdom of Morocco has consistently called on international human rights actors to assume their full responsibility for human rights violations in the Tindouf camps, including the theft of humanitarian aid intended for the camps by the leaders of the polisario, even Algerian “.