2024-04-15 11:50:52
In its intervention during the general debate on the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the 55th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), the NGO ”Promotion of Economic and Social Development” ( PDES) indicated that Algeria still refuses to recognize the inhabitants of the Tindouf camps as refugees and to implement the rights resulting therefrom, in accordance with its obligations arising from the ratification of the Convention and the Protocol relating to the status refugees.
The population of Tindouf remains “refugees without refugee cards and without census, living in camps of a military nature, contrary to the Geneva Convention on Refugees, which stipulates that the civilian character of the camps must be maintained”, noted the PDES.
According to the same source, the leaders of the “Polisario” continue to manage the camps in place of the host country, Algeria, in violation of the rules of international law and sheltered from international surveillance, because “the operations monitoring are sporadic or partial at best and cannot fully reveal the systematic pattern of serious human rights violations committed against camp residents.
In this intervention, delivered by human rights activist Aicha Douihi, the NGO also drew attention to the inability of “UN special procedures to go to the Tindouf camps, despite the recommendations that we made in this regard in the reports that we submitted to them during their visit to the host country, the Algerian State.
The activist also asked the High Commissioner for Human Rights “to send technical commissions to the Tindouf camps, in the southwest of Algeria, to note the serious violations and abuses, the recurrence of violence and the alarming lack of security.
2024-04-15 11:50:52