Why do some Sahrawis who benefit from the family exchange visits refuse to return to the Tindouf camps once they reach Morocco? Since the launch of this family visits program in March 2004 under the supervision of the UNHCR, some 185 Moroccan Sahrawis from 65 families chose not to return to the Tindouf camps and freely decided to remain among their relatives in the Moroccan southern provinces. The reasons behind this choice are exposed by one of these Sahrawis, Moulay Ahmed Ould Mohamed Lamine, who himself had decided during a recent visit to the southern provinces not to return to Tindouf and to settle permanently in Smara. This choice is dictated in most cases by these Sahrawis’ longing to put an end to the long years of pain and suffering they endured and to escape the many violations they are subjected to at the hands of the Polisario torturers during their sequestration on Algerian territory, he explained. Most of those who are still being held against their will in the Tindouf camps "clearly refute the separatist thesis" and yearn to reunite with their families in Morocco, he went on to say.

A Sahrawi association has demanded the opening, without delay, of an international investigation in the Tindouf camps to identify the perpetrators of crimes and abuses against the Moroccan Sahrawis.
The Sahrawi Forum of Struggle against Torture and Racism has deplored the impunity enjoyed by the Polisario torturers and urged the international community to exert pressure on Algerian authorities and the Polisario leadership to force them to stop the crimes committed in Tindouf on Algerian soil and to prosecute the perpetrators of these abuses.

The trial proceedings started by the Spanish High Court, the highest court in Spain, following a complaint filed five years ago against the Polisario leaders for genocide and serious violations of human rights, are closely followed in the refugee camps in Tindouf.
On November 22, the judge of the Central Tribunal of Instruction N° 5 of the Spanish High Court, ruled admissible the complaint filed on December 14, 2007 by victims of the Polisario and a Sahrawi NGO against senior Algerian political and security officials and heavyweights of the Polisario leadership. They are prosecuted for "genocide, torture, forced disappearances, illegal detention and serious violations of human rights" in the camps of Tindouf in south-western Algeria.
According to the victims' lawyers, José Manuel Romero Gonzalez and Carlos Sancho de la Calle, 28 defendants will be prosecuted by the Spanish High Court. Most of these defendants have fled the European space after they heard that a complaint against them had been filed, the lawyers said.

Many Moroccan Sahrawis who have been sequestered for decades in the refugee camps in Tindouf on Algerian soil, seize the opportunity of the family exchange visits, sponsored by the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to resettle in their birthplace in southern Morocco. Recently, ten people from among the beneficiaries of the family visits program decided not to go back to Tindouf and to settle permanently in the Motherland. These new comers are from six families living in the provinces of Laayoune and Smara.
According to local authorities, five of these people visited Smara in the context of the operation that took place on November 7, while four others arrived in Smara and one person arrived in Laayoune on November 21 in the framework of another visit organized by the UNHCR between the Tindouf camps and the southern provinces of Morocco.