A group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has called on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to implement a programme of technical cooperation and capacity building with the legal representative of the Polisario Front.
The Polisario Front is composed largely of the indigenous nomadic inhabitants of the Western Sahara region, the Sahrawis.
It was learnt that the American Association of Jurists’ representative in Geneva, Gianfranco Fattorini, made the call on behalf of 240 NGOs.
‘While the Kingdom of Morocco is considered to be the third country in Africa for the number of Covid-19 victims, no reliable information is available about the situation in the Occupied Territory of Western Sahara’, Fattorini said.
The NGOs called on the UNHRC High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelt, ‘to resume, without delay, the technical missions to Western Sahara initiated in 2015 and the Sahrawi refugees’ camps’.
‘To implement the commitments made by the office at the World Humanitarian Summit, in particular by publicly condemning serious violations of International Humanitarian Law and serious and systematic human rights violations and by reporting on the impact of the frozen conflict on Sahrawi human rights defenders and journalists in view of ensuring the enjoyment of human rights’, the NGOs added.
Source: Sahara Press Service
Photo source: GPA Photo Archive
