Mallorca urges UN to protect Sahrawi children in exile

Mallorca’s island council is calling on the United Nations to protect Sahrawi children growing up in exile in the Tindouf refugee camps. On Friday, 9 October, council official Magdalena Ramis brings that demand to the United Nations General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonisation Committee in New York. Whole generations have been born and raised in the camps, she says.

A temporary refuge becomes a lifetime

Ramis, who oversees the council’s centres and programmes for children and adolescents, says a situation meant to be temporary has become permanent. Children should not have their futures shaped by a decolonisation conflict that remains unresolved, she tells the committee, also known as the Fourth Committee.

She points to the Sahrawi people’s efforts to preserve their identity and organise community services in difficult conditions. Women play a vital role in education and care, she says, but that work is no reason to delay stronger protection for children.

Mallorca also calls for a referendum

Guillermo Sánchez, Mallorca’s councillor for social welfare and president of the Mallorcan Institute of Social Affairs, also addresses the committee. He calls for international resolutions to be honoured and for a referendum that would let the Sahrawi people decide their own future. He made the same appeal to Spain’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations on Thursday.

Sánchez says an international response must improve living conditions and protect rights while addressing the political conflict. He and Ramis speak before the committee at the request of the Association of Friends of the Sahrawi People in the Balearic Islands and the Polisario Front.

Topics: Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com