Still no news about the three Western hostages kidnapped in the Polisario camps in Algeria. A kidnapping which confirms the infiltration of AQMI within the Polisario, but which reveals clearly other ongoing practices. It concerns in particular the misappropriations of international humanitarian aid sent to the Tindouf camps. Polisario which disputes with Morocco over the Western Sahara region with the support of Algeria, was many times nabbed by the misappropriation of international aids. After the kidnapping of Sunday, well informed sources in Tindouf camps have assured that the three kidnapped humanitarian agents have started controlling more closely the humanitarian aid sent to the Sahrawi population. They have become more pernickety after having some doubts about the final destiny of the humanitarian aid, a part of which ends in the markets of the region’s countries.
A hypothesis which may explain the fact that the kidnapping was not yet claimed by the AQMI jihadists’ groups. In this case, the kidnapping of the two Spanish and Italian people may have been the act of the Polisario itself, with the help of traffickers operating in the Sahelo-Saharan zone, according to the same sources. But in the absence of information about the place the hostages are detained and the identity of the kidnappers, the concerned countries observe the most carefulness. Madrid has thus advised its citizens to postpone their travelling in Tindouf region where the security conditions are no more assured. Trinidad Jiménez, the Chief of the Spanish diplomacy has assured that Spain has “asked the United Nations to send a mission in Algeria to evaluate the security situation in Tindouf camps”. The UN is also very worried. As a sign of this worry, the deputy secretary general, Gregory Starr has, immediately after the announcement of the kidnapping last Sunday, ordered a security blockade around Tindouf camps. Gregory Starr has ordered to enhance the alert to its maximum level of 4 degrees in Tindouf area, to suspend all the night patrols and the MINURSO activities and to observe a “strict curfew at dawn”.
