Sahrawi Association calls for independent inquiry about Gdeim Izik camp dismantling

El Aaiun (Occupied Territories)- The Association of Sahrawi victims of serious violations of human rights committed by Morocco (ASVDH) calls for an independent investigation on the "serious" violations of human rights during the dismantling of Gdim Izik camp last November.

In a report on these tragic events, ASVDH also calls for "repairing the damage caused by the practices of the Moroccan army and security forces against harassed civilians, their destroyed and looted property and Gdeim Izik camp and El-Aaiun" and to stop the " racist incitement policy against the Sahrawi population.

Describing the conditions under which the camp of Gdeim Izik was dismantled, the report cites the arrival of "large numbers" of the royal armed forces, police and auxiliary forces, "which surrounded and besieged the whole camp, since the first week of its establishment and the firing of live bullets at a group of young Sahrawis by the Moroccan Royal Army, resulting in the death of a 14-year Saharawi child," while several others were seriously injured, among whom two are still hospitalized in El Aaiun.

The Sahrawi Association also confirms the ban on access to the city by foreign observers, journalists and European parliamentarians and notes that the Moroccan authorities “gave neither the opportunity nor sufficient time for residents to gather their belongings and prepare to evacuate the place before their violent dismantling.

It also asserts that the Moroccan army, which invaded the camp of freedom," was accompanied by dozens of Moroccan civilians armed with sticks, batons and metal knives, especially teenagers carrying Moroccan flags," and that Sahrawi activists of human rights were the target of multiple violence.

ASVDH also confirms that prisoners and detainees "were subjected to torture and ill treatment in places of detention" and that cases of rape "were recorded" when "none of Moroccan civilians who participated in the acts of violence, vandalism, and raids on houses inhabited by Saharawis, were questioned.."

Moreover, the association denounces the socio-economic conditions in Western Sahara, which prevent the Saharawi population to benefit from the income of the abound wealth in the region, "in contradiction with the fundamental principles applicable to the non-autonomous territories in the Article 73 of the UN Charter."

It asserts that "it is the policy of exclusion, marginalization and inequitable distribution of economic wealth of Western Sahara, which led the Sahrawi population to move to the area of Gdim Izik, where they established a camp to defend their legitimate economic and social rights.

"The jobs provided by mining (phosphate) and fishing sectors, as the basis of the economic wealth of Western Sahara, are sufficient to absorb the unemployed Saharawi workforce and take out many Sahrawi families in poverty," pointed out the association's report.

It also underlines that the private sector in the region "is designed primarily to exploit the riches without investment returns for the region and its indigenous population" and that the production units of freezing and canning of fish, manufacture of fishmeal and oil," hire only Moroccans."