The UN contradicts the Spanish Government and ensures that remain in Tindouf is safe

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The Office of the United Nations for Western Sahara at Tindouf (Algeria) considers that there is no reason for foreign workers that United Nations has working in the Sahrawi camps are evacuated for safety reasons. The head of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (Minurso), Omar Bachir Manis, conveyed this message during the meeting held last night with Spanish aid workers visiting the camps of refugees in response to the decision of the Spanish Government of repatriating volunteers in Tindouf because of a threat of imminent abduction. Manis did not want to prosecute the action taken by the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García-Margallo. “We continue working here,” said the head of the UN during the working session with presence of media held in the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) United Nations in Rabuni camp, about 25 kilometres from Tindouf, southwest of Algeria.

United Nations has 23 foreigners cooperating in the camps, working for Minurso, UNHCR and the world food programme. According to Manis, when Spanish Government told end of July that it would repatriate to donors, the order given to staff of the UN was “stay home for three days and avoid displacement” in order to “give time to find a solution”. “We met with the Sahrawis to study extra security measures.” “After three days, activities returned to normal,” he explained. Manis recalled that since the attack that took place in Iraq against the United Nations Headquarters in August 2003, which killed 22 people, the safety of the template is a “high priority”. The head of Minurso at Tindouf acknowledged that the kidnapping of aid workers Spanish Enric Gonyalons and Ainhoa Fernández Rincón and the Italian Rossella Urru on October 22 was a “turning point” in the camps after many years in which “the tranquility was usual” in the area. This kidnapping led to establish a joint working to strengthen the security of aid workers and the implementation of a series of measures, he said. “On that document we work together”, Manis said with regard to the Monitoring Committee composed of Minurso, the UN agencies, the Sahrawi authorities and the Spanish Agency for international cooperation for development (Aecid), that now it is no longer present in Tindouf. He admitted to monitoring measures to oblige there is more control of the movements of those who come from outside to spend a few days staying with Saharan families. Manis, of Sudanese origin, has spent two years in Tindouf at the head of Minurso, whose goal is to try to organize a referendum in the Western Sahara to enforce the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people since 1991.