SAHARA PRESS SERVICE

Bir Lehlu, 24/02/2004 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, sent a condolence message to the king of Morocco, Mohamed VI, after the earthquake that hit the city of Al Hoceima on Monday night to Tuesday, and that caused the death of more than 229 persons and 150 injured, according
to the last non-final report.

"In this painful occasion, I would like on behalf of the Saharawi people and in my personal name to present to your Majesty, to the families of the victims and to the brother Moroccan people, my sincere condolences and my sympathy, being convinced that Morocco will surpass this painful disaster", underlined the message.

The earthquake of Al Hoceima reached a magnitude of 6.3 degrees on the scale of Richter, while the researches on the place still continue to save possible buried victims under the rubble, according to the agencies. (SPS)

010/090/100/TRD 241811 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
SADR/QATAR/MOROCCO/PRISONERS OF WAR
The Government of Qatar will save no effort to decrease the pains of Western Sahara conflict's tragedy, asserts a Qatarian minister

Chahid El Hafed, 24/02/2004 (SPS) The Qatarian minister of state, Sheik Hamad Ben Abdallah Al Thani, declared that his Government will save no effort to reduce the pains of the tragedy of Western Sahara's conflict, in allusion to efforts that his country could undertake for the release of Moroccan and Saharawi POWs, captured during the fights that had opposed Polisario Front to Morocco.

"The Government of Qatar will attempt with all its forces to reduce the sufferings", engendered by the conflict in Western Sahara, exclusively declared Mr. Ben Abdallah Al Thani to SPS.

The minister, attending the delivery by Polisario Front of the 100 Moroccan POWs to the ICRC, thanked the Saharawi authority for "the positive response to the request of Qatar, under the direction of the Prince of the country, Hamad Ben Khalifa Al Thani, having resulted to the release of this group of prisoners".

On his part, the regional delegate of the ICRC, Harald Schmid of Gruneck, thanked Polisario Front for « this new help, that resulted to the release of 100 Moroccan POWs", as well as the authorities of Qatar that "have contributed to this release by offering their good offices".

" The ICRC hails and congratulates itself for this initiative which is added to others undertaken, since 1984 and that resulted to the release of 1740 Moroccan POWs", he added, underlining that "  ICRC is grateful to all the States and all the organisations that had offered their mediations in this context''.

Asked about the efforts of his organisation for the release of Saharawi prisoners of war and disappeared held by Morocco, MR. Gruneck kept reminding of the researches done at the request of the ICRC to Morocco, and that resulted in the localisation of about 30 persons out of a list of 179 prisoners of war, officially handed to the organisation by Polisario Front.

"Concerning the remaining persons, we have no information about them and we are continuing our discussions with Saharawi and Moroccan authorities", he declared to SPS.

He had only said that Moroccan authorities "have no more prisoners of Polisario Front and that the last ones had been repatriated in 1996".

The President of the Saharawi Red Crescent, had blamed ICRC for not giving full attention to the tragedy of Saharawi prisoners of war and disappeared's families, deploring that the fate of "seems not to be a major concern to the ICRC, the latter been more absorbed by its efforts regarding Moroccan POWs". (SPS)

010/090/000/TRD 241724 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
SADR/QATAR/MOROCCO/PRISONERS OF WAR
The President of the Red Crescent calls for the release of Saharawi prisoners and disappeared held by Morocco

Chahid El Hafed, 24/02/2004 (SPS) Saharawi Red Crescent's President (SRC), Bouhoubeini Yahia, claimed for the release of Saharawi prisoners of war and for the disclosure of the fate of Saharawi disappeared held by Morocco, calling UN and the international community to put pressures on Morocco to
end the state of siege imposed on western Sahara since the Moroccan military invasion in 1975.

The President of the SRC, who chaired on Tuesday the delivering ceremony of the 100 Moroccan prisoners of war (POWs) released past February the 13th by Polisario Front at Qatar's request, wished that Polisario's initiative "finds favourable echo from Moroccan authorities to push them release more
than 150 Saharawi prisoners of war and to draw light on the fate of more than 500 disappeared", deploring that the fate of these men "seems not to be a major concern to the ICRC, the latter been more absorbed by its efforts regarding Moroccan POWs".

The president of the SRC indicated that this "humanitarian and generous initiative comes within the framework of the unilateral initiatives Polisario Front did not stop undertaking since 1986, of which the last one, in November 2003, resulted to the release of 300 Moroccan POWs".

He solicited another initiative from Qatar to include, this time, Saharawi prisoners and disappeared still detained by Morocco and "to put an end to all pressures exerted on Saharawi human Rights' activists in Western Sahara, who are subjects to Moroccan colonial authorities' exactions".

In this respect, the president of the SRC called Security Council, UN and international organisations to "put an end to the state of siege imposed on the Saharawi territory since its military occupation in 1975, to allow the media, NGO's and international observers to freely circulate and to allow the implementation of the confidence-building measures, decided by Un and still opposed by Morocco'.

In addition, he called the international community to a solid humanitarian assistance to the Saharawi refugees "conforming to the resolutions of the Security Council and in accordance with the numerous calls of UN's Secretary General''.

Mr. Bouhoubeyni recalled that the capture of these POWs was a result to Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara that continues to perpetrate ''a human tragedy for thousands of innocents: Saharawi women, children and old persons who lost their families and fled their country to live as refugees for more
than 28 years in inhuman conditions".

Persons who have international humanitarian aid as the unique resource, and who are «separated from their families by the longest wall in the world, which is dividing Western Sahara from the North to the South, stuffed with more than ten millions mines already having caused harm to several victims», he deplored. (SPS0

030/090/000/TRD 241425 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
SADR/QATAR
The President of the Republic receives Qatarian minister of states

Chahid El Hafed, 24/02/2004 (SPS) The President of the Republic, Mohamed Abdelaziz, received, on Monday, the Qatarian minister of state, Sheik Hamad Ben Abdallah Al Thani, who is present in the Saharawi refugees' camps for the ceremony of delivery of the 100 Moroccan POWs released last February
the 13th by Polisario Front at Qatar's request.

The head of state offered a dinner on the honour of his Qatarian host, attended by members of national secretariat, Abdelakader Taleb Oumar, Prime Minister, Hamada Selma, minister of justice, M'Hamed Khadad, coordinator with the Minurso and Lehreitani Lehsen, Secretary general of the ministry of information. 

This new group of POWs arises the number, of the so far unilaterally released Moroccan POWs by Polisario Front to 1743, since the Moroccan invasion of the Saharawi territory in 1975.

Polisario Front has deplored that "Morocco still maintain, in total secret, 150 Saharawi fighters and more than 500 civil disappeared", and has solicited "the intervention of Qatar, near Morocco, to release Saharawi soldiers and to reveal the truth about the fate of the disappeared".
 
Considering that it did never stop "granting the biggest sacrifices in favour of the opportunities of peace and choosing the peaceful paths for the decolonisation of Western Sahara, conforming to law and legality'', Polisario Front considered that, Morocco "can not continue, with impunity, to oppose international community's efforts rejecting the resolutions unanimously adopted by Security Council, especially resolution 1495 of the 31st July 2003, which calls Morocco to accept and implement, UN Secretary General's Personal Envoy to Western Sahara, James Baker III's « Peace Plan for self-determination of Saharawi People»''. (SPS)

010/090/100/TRD 241241 Feb 04 SPS

SPS
RASD/QATAR/MAROC/PRISONNIERS DE GUERRE
Polisario delivers the 100 Moroccan POWs to Qatar and ICRC to be repatriated

Chahid El Hafed, 24/02/2004 (SPS) Polisario Front delivered, on Tuesday, the 100 Moroccan POWs released last February the 13th at Qatar's request, to the Qatarian minister of state, Sheik Hamad Abdallah Al Thani, and to the ICRC, to be repatriated this same day on board of an airplane Qatar put at the disposal of the ICRC.

The ceremony, of the delivery of this group, was chaired by Saharawi Red Crescent's President (SRC), Bouhhoubeini Yahia, in the presence of Saharawi political authorities and military officers.

Captured by Saharawi fighters during the war that opposed Saharawi liberation army to Morocco since the military invasion of the Saharawi territory in 1975, The 100 Moroccan POWs left Tindouf's airport heading to Agadir (Morocco), it was indicated.

The released Moroccan POWs will be delivered to Moroccan authorities by the Qatarian minister of state, who is accompanying them to Agadir with the ICRC's regional delegate, Harald Schmid of Gruneck, it was stressed.

 
It should be recalled that Morocco is still holding 150 Saharawi prisoners of war and more than 526 persons still reported disappeared since the beginning of the conflict. (SPS)

010/090/000/TRD 241200 Feb 04 SPS