European Commission Called to Check Humanitarian Assistance for Tindouf Camps

Paris – The French Foreign Ministry called on the European Commission to shed light on the misappropriation of humanitarian aid to populations in Tindouf camps.

Responding to a question from a member, the Ministry states that “such diversions of humanitarian assistance, if true, would not be acceptable and would call an answer,” recalling that the European Parliament had asked the Commission to re-evaluate using the Union and to adapt to the real needs of the populations, and to ensure that the interests of the populations of the Tindouf camps and their needs are not harmed.

In its response published this week in the Official Bulletin, the French Foreign Ministry also emphasizes that the census in Tindouf camps is necessary for the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) can provide protection mission which he was entrusted by the 1951 Refugee Convention.

In a question in the National Assembly, MP Yves Bonami had attracted the attention of Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on a report by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) released late January 2015 which refers to a serious diversion of humanitarian aid to the Tindouf camps in Algeria.

The European Union, one of the main providers of humanitarian aid, has allocated humanitarian aid worth € 105 million to people living in the Tindouf camps between 1994 and 2004, said the deputy, noting that this report highlights a systematic diversion of part of the humanitarian aid for several years.

Part of this diversion would be much easier with the deliberate overestimation of the number of refugees in the Tindouf camps by the Algerian authorities, said the MP, who has called on France to support any binding initiative Polisario and Algeria to allow a census the populations of the Tindouf camps by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, to end the exploitation of this humanitarian situation for political and financial gain.