Mheiriz (liberated territories), Nov 21, 2013 (SPS) - The remains of the eight Saharawi persons, executed by Moroccan occupation army on February 1976, will be given today an official burial in Fadret Leguiaa in the liberated region of Mheiriz, Western Sahara, said Saharawi official source.
The remains of the victims of this mass grave were discovered months ago by a Basque forensic team in Fadret Leguiaa in the region of Samra, Western Sahara.
This ceremony will be attended by families of the victims, Saharawi authorities, UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), non-governmental organizations, international personalities and the Basque forensic team, who overseen the exhumation process.
Memorial ceremony will be marked by reading Al-Fatiha on the souls of the victims, and pray for them in the place of the mass grave.
“The burial and discovery of the first Saharawi mass grave is the beginning for the international community to expose part of the war crimes have been committed by Moroccan regime against the Saharawi people since 31 October 1975, date of his invasion of Western Sahara,” the same source told SPS.
The source added that the presence of international organizations and actors in this memorial ceremony will “categorically deny” Morocco’s allegations and its reports that contradict the reality on the ground.
“The research for dozens of the Saharawis, who were buried in mass graves and cemeteries all over the region, particularly in the occupied territories and southern Morocco, is underway,” he underlined.
He, in this respect, recalled that there are more than 500 Saharawi missing and 151 prisoners of war, whose fate remains unknown.
A Spanish professional forensic team from the University of the Basque Country, the Aranzadi Foundation and the Hegoa University Institute conducted, in collaboration with the Association of Families of Saharawi Prisoners and Disappeared (AFAPREDESA), a research in Fadret Leguiaa in the region of Samra, an area of the Western Sahara, in which there were suspected human remains of Saharawi victims, who had been executed by Moroccan armed forces on February 1976.
At the end of this extensive research, the team released its findings as a report under the title “Meheris: a possibility of hope; mass graves and the first Sahrawi disappeared who have been identified” by Carlos Martín Beristain and Francisco Etxeberria Gabilondo. (SPS)
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