Algeria reinforces siege around refugee camps for railway launch
Algeria has reinforced its siege around the refugee camps in a western province as it prepares for the iron transportation railway launch.
Reported by The North Africa Post (NAP) on January 20th, its new security plans includes building more fortifications and fences around the Tindouf camps in the west, making it near impossible for the refugees in those camps to leave.
The siege would continue to deprive the Sahraoui refugees, held against their will in the camps, from their sources of revenue which include smuggling activities with neighboring countries, according to NAP.
The Tindouf camps hold Sahrawi refugees fleeing Moroccan forces through Western Sahara. The desert climate makes it difficult to be self-sufficient, leaving the refugees dependent on international aid.
However, Algeria are legally accountable for the rights breaches that occur in the camps as it falls under their territorial jurisdiction. Yet the government has abandoned control of the camps to a separatist militia called the Polisario, a nationalist liberation movement of the Western Sahara, according to the NAP.
Multiple rights groups have criticized the Algerian government for the suffering permitted at the Tindouf camps with multiple reports of rights violations.
The siege comes as Algeria seeks to exploit the iron mine in the southwest of Algeria.
Algeria has described the mine as the “Texas of Africa”, indicating both the size and wealth of the mine. Estimates that place reserves at, at least, 3 billion tons of iron that are “easy to exploit as surface reservoirs”, according to Turkish news outlet Al-Estiklal.
The newspaper also reported that neighboring Morocco has declared that Algeria “has no right to exploit the mine without an agreement with Rabat”.
Moroccan experts believe the exploitation of the iron mine violates the agreement signed between Morocco and Algeria in 1972 which relates to the joint venture of iron mines.
Ultimately, the continued exploitation of the iron mine by Algeria will serve to keep Moroccan-Algerian relations frosty.
The North Africa Post, al-Estiklal
