Geneva (Switzerland), July 18, 2026 (SPS) – The Representative of the Polisario Front in Switzerland and to international organizations in Geneva, Ms. Najat Handi, sent an urgent letter to the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Ms. Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, calling for urgent intervention to save the life of Sahrawi civilian prisoner and human rights defender Naâma Abdi Moussa Asfari, who has been on hunger strike since June 8.
The letter expressed deep concern over the serious deterioration of the health condition of the Sahrawi prisoner, currently held at Kenitra Central Prison, noting that he was transferred to the prison clinic on June 22 following a deterioration in his health.
The Polisario Front representative clarified that prisoner Naâma Asfari, born in 1970 and Vice-President of the Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights in Western Sahara (CORELSO), has been on an open-ended hunger strike for more than five weeks in protest against prolonged isolation, the denial of family visits, medical neglect and the failure to implement international decisions relating to his case.
The letter recalled that the case of prisoner Naâma Asfari has received the attention of United Nations human rights mechanisms, notably the UN Committee against Torture, which concluded in Communication No. 606/2014 that Morocco had violated several provisions of the Convention against Torture, as well as Opinion No. 23/2023 issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which deemed his detention arbitrary and called for his immediate release.
Despite these international decisions, the letter added, prisoner Naâma Asfari remains in detention while his health continues to deteriorate dangerously, putting his life at risk and warning of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.
In this context, the Polisario Front representative called on the ICRC to dispatch an urgent medical and humanitarian mission to Kenitra Central Prison to assess the prisoner's health condition and ensure that he receives independent and immediate medical care, as well as to continuously monitor his health and undertake the necessary humanitarian procedures with the Moroccan authorities to prevent irreparable harm.
She also called for facilitating the resumption of family visits and enabling his wife, Ms. Claude Mangin, and his family members to visit him and maintain regular contact with him, as well as strengthening the monitoring of detention conditions in Moroccan prisons holding Sahrawi political prisoners, with particular attention to healthcare, detention conditions, family contact and respect for human dignity.
The letter further called for encouraging the implementation of United Nations decisions related to Naâma Asfari's case and supporting efforts to enable UN mechanisms, particularly the Special Rapporteur on torture and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit Sahrawi political prisoners and independently assess their conditions.
The letter stressed that each additional day of the open-ended hunger strike increases the risk of irreversible health complications, emphasizing that urgent humanitarian intervention has become an imperative to save the life of prisoner Naâma Asfari and safeguard his physical integrity and human dignity.
