Morocco needs UNHCR to overcome status quo in Tindouf

Rabat - Morocco has requested the input of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to change the status quo in the Polisario-run Tindouf camps. The remarks were given Friday by Foreign Minister, Taib Fassi Fihri at a joint press conference with the high commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres, on a visit in the north African country.

"We need the UNHCR, not only to carry out the humanitarian mandate of the agency, but also to help us find a lasting solution" to the situation in the Tindouf camps, Fassi Fihri told reporters. The Algerian-backed Polisario separatists have been holding thousands of Moroccan civilians in the desert Tindouf camps on the Algerian soil for over three decades now.

The FM said the real situation in the camps is not know by anyone. He denounced the human rights breaches in the territory, and the impossibility for the people held there to leave and join Morocco, their homeland. The Moroccan official pinned the political and legal responsibility of this persisting situation on the country's eastern neighbour, Algeria, saying the situation is "unbearable" from the humanitarian viewpoint.

He insisted on the importance Morocco attaches to conducting a census in the camps in order to identify the native Sahrawi and enable the UNHCR to play its institutional role of opening dialogue with the Tindouf populations so they can express their wish to stay there, come to Morocco or go elsewhere.

For his part, Guterres underlined that "the habitual practice of census conducted in the framework of the humanitarian operations has nothing to do with the political considerations." It is rather "a tool for the humanitarian assistance." He noted that Algeria has requested augmenting the aid given to the camps, but the UNHCR says that this increase hinges upon counting the camps' populations. He deplored that "Algeria did not accept conducting this census," insisting that the UN refugee agency has not changed its estimation on the number of people living in the territory.

Guterres announced that his proposal of opening a land route for family exchange visits (between Tindouf and Morocco's southern province) was accepted by all the parties, saying that 8,000 people have benefited from the exchange programme, and another 42,000 are registered to take part. With the present rhythm, it would be impossible to carry out this programme through air lines, he said.

The UN official voiced satisfaction over what he termed as a "qualitative leap" in the UNHCR-Morocco relations, voicing hope that the north African country "would, as part of this cooperation, put in place a legal framework for asylum," and to create an institution for issuing the status of refugee on its territory."

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