Shahid al-Hafed, February 20, 2024 (SPS) - The Sahrawi National Council expressed its denunciation of the Moroccan occupation’s persistence in violating human rights and international conventions and covenants in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, through a policy of ethnic cleansing and scorched earth, and its attempt to expand its settlements in the occupied territories.
The Sahrawi National Council explained in a statement that, on February 13, 2024, the Moroccan occupation forces deliberately demolished and set fire to the homes of Sahrawis along the coast extending between the occupied cities of Laayoune and Boujdour, which had sheltered Sahrawi families for decades, leaving dozens of families out, adding that the Moroccan occupation has always relied on the policy of forced displacement of the Sahrawi people since its military invasion of Western Sahara in 1975.
The statement pointed out the danger of the Moroccan occupation replicating the Zionist settlement project in Palestine, which is based on the idea of occupation through settlement, which is the most dangerous form of colonialism, because it intends to wipe out an entire people through displacement and replace them with another people. This is, according to the statement, what happened to the Sahrawi people after Moroccan occupation forces demolished and burned down their homes and made them homeless.
The National Council held the United Nations and the UN Security Council responsible for the policies of forcefully annexing Sahrawi lands, demolishing homes, expelling, deporting and displacing Sahrawis, which violate the international law, including the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people and the prohibition of seizing lands through the use of force and granting them to foreign investors and Moroccan settlers.
The statement called on the United Nations to intervene urgently and activate the legal and moral responsibility towards the Sahrawi people, especially the protection of civilians and their property and the protection of human rights activists in the occupied territories, which requires the use of international protection mechanisms and taking practical measures to ensure their safety and security, including the establishment of an independent and permanent mechanism to protect human rights in the occupied territories of Western Sahara
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