Teach the Children

Teach The Children International

Participating in the seventeenth session of the UN High Commission for Refugees, the American non-governmental organisation, Teach the Children International, called upon the High Commission to take all necessary measures to ensure respect for human rights in the Tindouf Camps in south-west Algeria.

Ms Nancy Huff, chairman of Teach the Children International, and her colleague Ms Dona Elizabeth Sams testified to the misappropriation of dozens of containers of humanitarian aid provided by United States citizens for the residents of Tindouf, including food, medicines, and wheel chairs, and described how they had been unable to find these items on arrival in Tindouf.

"We wanted to take photographs of the aid to show to those who had contributed in the United States, that their gifts had arrived safely, but imagine our surprise to find that only a very minuscule portion - and in some cases nothing - had arrived…..   The Polisario prevented us from distributing this aid directly to the people, including presents to Saharawi children in schools."

Ms Huff and Ms Sams have both visited the Tindouf Camps many times and are appalled by the terrible living conditions and the absence of basic human rights in the Camps, as well as practice of slavery which exists in Tindouf.

Ms Huff cited the Vienna Declaration's insistence on governments' first duties being to protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms.  She deplored the activities of the Polisario Front in the Tindouf Camps which violate the statutes of the Vienna Declaration. 

June 2011