Some 80 young Sahrawis and three women have fled the Tindouf desolation camps in search of a better refuge on Spanish soil. However, their dreams were shattered as they were detained in the Madrid airport, where they are waiting to be deported.
The Tindouf fugitives decided to take an international flight with a stopover at the Madrid Barajas airport and to ask for asylum once they were in Spain. But their asylum requests were turned down.
The 80 Sahrawis were pinned by the Spanish border police and placed in a detention center at the airport, awaiting their deportation, reported Monday (August 21) a news website close to the Polisario.
All their personal belongings and cell phones were confiscated and they were subjected to a long interrogation after Spanish authorities refused to recognize their travel documents issued by the SADR, added the website “futurosahara.net”.
In the past, disgruntled Sahrawis, including some dissidents of the Polisario leadership who managed to extricate themselves from Tindouf ‘s open-air prison, headed to Mauritania, where they asked the Moroccan diplomatic and consular services for authorization to travel to the southern provinces of the Kingdom.
However, since the infiltration in recent years of Polisario elements, Morocco imposed very restrictive entry measures to prevent these elements from settling in the Southern provinces as their main purpose is to sow trouble, infringe the public order and provoke law enforcement agents.
The painful events of the dismantling of Gdeim Izik’s camp on 8 November 2010 and the assassination of eleven members of the Moroccan security forces are still present in the minds of Moroccans and the families of the victims.
“It is true that the Motherland is merciful and compassionate, and so it will remain,” as King Mohammed VI stressed in a Green March speech in November 2014, but since the tragic events of Gdeim Izik, Morocco refuses to welcome “traitors” on its soil.