Bir Lahlu, 31 August 2024 (SPS) - President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, stated that the brutal assault by the Moroccan occupation on dozens of homes inhabited by Sahrawi families in the outskirts of the occupied city of El Aaiun represents a "serious escalation" in the scorched-earth policy pursued by the Moroccan occupying state against the Sahrawis in the occupied Sahrawi territories.
In a message sent to both the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, and Ambassador Michael Imran Cano, the permanent representative of Sierra Leone to the UN and this month's President of the Security Council, President Ghali urged the Secretary-General and the Security Council to "expedite the establishment of the necessary mechanisms to protect Sahrawi civilians in occupied Western Sahara as it is a territory subject to decolonization under the auspices of the United Nations."
Documented reports with photographs and eyewitness testimonies from the occupied Sahrawi territories indicate that Moroccan occupation authorities attacked dozens of Sahrawi families residing in the Lamriyat area southeast of the occupied city of El Aaiun early on Monday. They used bulldozers to destroy their homes, vandalize their properties, treat them brutally, and forcibly evict them from the area.
The Sahrawi president added that this brutal assault constitutes a "war crime and a serious escalation" in the scorched-earth policy, accompanied by practices of looting, land confiscation, property destruction, forced displacement, and racist practices adopted by the Moroccan occupying state against the Sahrawis in the occupied territories, which "could lead to dire consequences."
Furthermore, these colonial practices - the president's message added - "are part of a settler colonial policy aimed at perpetuating the illegal occupation and annexation of Western Sahara by making the Sahrawis refugees on their own land and settling more Moroccan settlers and others in the region, in gross violation of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 and the principles of international humanitarian law and relevant international law."
Therefore, Mr. Ghali again called on "the Secretary-General and the Security Council urgently to take all necessary measures to hold the Moroccan occupying state accountable for its blatant and ongoing violations of international humanitarian law and to expedite the establishment of necessary mechanisms to protect Sahrawi civilians in occupied Western Sahara as it is a territory subject to decolonization under the auspices of the United Nations."
In conclusion, the Sahrawi president reiterated that "there can never be any serious and meaningful peace process as long as the Moroccan occupying state, in a state of complete impunity, continues its violations of international humanitarian law and international law in occupied Western Sahara and its attempts to impose a fait accompli by force in the region, all while under the watch of the United Nations and its mission on the ground."
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