The MSP asks the UN for a greater UNHCR presence in the Saharawi refugee camps

The Movement Saharawi for Peace (MSP) has sent a letter to Staffan de Mistura, personal envoy of the UN Secretary General for Western Sahara, requesting a greater presence of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Saharawi refugee camps and the incorporation of other alternative actors in the political process opened on Western Sahara. 

In the letter, the first secretary of the MSP, Hach Ahmed Bericalla, refers to the ‘significant damage caused by the torrential rains in Dakhla camp’ on 20 September last, pointing to the need for a ‘greater presence of UNHCR in the camps’ to take care of the basic needs of the Saharawi refugees. ‘It is incomprehensible that, after five decades, UNHCR still does not have a solid presence in Tindouf capable of guaranteeing the Saharawi refugees basic sustenance, documentation for free movement, training, work, health coverage and other rights contemplated in the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees,’ the letter states. 

‘We consider - it adds - that it is more necessary than ever that UNHCR fulfils its obligations in relation to the Saharawi refugees, especially since the solution to the problem of Western Sahara does not seem to be in sight in the short term’, the letter indicates. 

The first secretary of the MSP reiterates the readiness of the Movement to collaborate with the efforts of Staffan de Mistura to ‘revitalise the mission of good offices entrusted to the envoy for Western Sahara by the UN Secretary General three years ago’. ‘We believe that, in order to move forward and overcome the impasse, it would be beneficial to democratise the political process by including other actors in the peace talks. I again suggest that you kindly welcome a representation of the Movement Saharawi for Peace (MSP) in Nouakchott or Madrid on your next tour of the region’, the letter states. 

The MSP is convinced that its participation, together with that of the Saharawi tribal leaders, in the round table ‘will mark a before and after in the whole operation, since it will open the necessary and until now postponed Saharawi dialogue without which the unblocking of the Saharawi situation is difficult, if not impossible’.