At the time when new informal negotiations on the Sahara should take place at the beginning of February in Manhasset, near New York, human rights situation in Tindouf camps, in Algeria, is still worrying.
These apprehensions were expressed by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alain Juppé for whom « the human rights situation in Tindouf camps, in Algeria, should be improved ». Starting from the position of France, which contributes financially to the humanitarian aid granted to the Sahrawi populations in Tindouf camps, Alain Juppé believes necessary to make a census of these populations. He, thus, supports the UN Security Council which had already asked for the census of these populations settled on the Algerian territory. Nevertheless, Algiers continues ignoring these requests, which annoy its military and diplomatic support to the Polisario Front, struggling against Morocco, for the independence of the Sahara region. Because of this intransigent position of Algiers and the Polisario, the informal negotiations continue going around in circles and are today at their 9th round without significant progress.  Despite of the calls of the Security Council to intensify the negotiations to reach a sustainable political solution, mutually acceptable, the process continues being sucked down.

Stability in the Maghreb, in the Sahel and in the Sub-Saharan Africa has become seriously fragile these last years with the appearance of new terrorist networks. The situation has become serious with the appearance of concrete proofs of a revealed collusion between the Polisario and the terrorist group of Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi). The last act was the kidnapping on last 23rd October of three Western citizens in the Sahrawi refugees camps in Tindouf, in the Algerian South-West. This kidnapping, warns a survey published lately by the US think tank, “Atlantic Council”, is part of an extremist network threatening the stability in the region of the Maghreb, the Sahel and Africa as a whole. “the settlement of Al Qaida in the Maghreb, specifies the survey, has strengthened its relationship with the Polisario Front, a rapprochement for the least worrying, illustrated by the kidnapping, in last October, of two Spanish and one Italian aid workers, and this in the heart of Tindouf camp”, a camp highly controlled by the Polisario armed militia and the Algerian army.

The young Sahrawis in Tindouf and elsewhere, have taken the opportunity of  the holding of the 13th Polisario congress to denounce the suffering lived by thousands of Sahrawi refugees suffering since decades under the yoke of sequestration, isolation and suppression in all its forms in Lahmada camps. Being convinced that nothing would change in the structure of the old guard of the everlasting Polisario chief, Mohamed Abdelaziz, some voices in Tindouf camps, like in the ranks of the Sahrawi diaspora abroad, have denounced these leaders’ takeover of the centers of decision, presiding over the destiny of the Sahrawi populations, especially, on the mode of management of international humanitarian aids which are the object of many misappropriation acts.

The situation is explosive in Tindouf camps controlled by the Polisario. It is the first evidence collected from a fluent member of the Ouled Dlim tribe, who has just escaped from the Sahrawi refugees’ camp of Lahmada. According to Mohamed Yislem Ould Al-Kouri Ould Souilem, one of the shioukhs of the identification operation in Tindouf camps, who has joined in the end of last week his homeland, Morocco, after many months spent in Spain, the situation in the camps continues being worse with the revolts of the Arab Spring. Arrived on Sunday evening to Dakhla, Mohamed Yislem, who was a teacher before being promoted to inspector and education regional director in Tindouf, explains his choice of returning to Morocco, considering his conviction that the only solution to the Sahara conflict resides in the Moroccan autonomy initiative.