Twenty of so-called Polisario “gendarmerie” personnel went on strike on Sunday morning in Rabouni in front of the gendarmerie headquarters, calling for precautions to be implemented to protect them from attacks and threats from criminal gangs in the Tindouf camps.
This action follows the aggressions perpetrated by natives of the Reguibat and Al Fokara tribes against the family of the gendarmerie Katiba leader Fdili Ould Daddach (Skarna tribe) at the Boujdour camp, which degenerated, on Sept. 18-19, into armed confrontations between the two aforementioned tribes.
Armed clashes between the Al Fokara and Skarna tribes in the Tindouf camps were touched off because of drug trafficking issues and did not stop until late last week, resulting in the death of a Sahrawi Algerian national.
The Polisario was unable to contain a subsequent large-scale protest in what the separatists call the “27 February Camp” in Tindouf, resulting in intensified clashes after the armed militia intervened, all the while futilely attempting to conceal the existence of these events by imposing a security cordon on the camp.
After the death of the Sahrawi individual, the wife of a former Algerian minister mobilized a large group of people in retaliation, brandishing no fewer than 15 weapons and demanding the release of that individual’s body. However, it was all to no avail, as the Skarna tribe instead handed him over to the authorities.
The Polisario accused Morocco of having incited these clashes, an apparent tactic to divert world attention from its inability to contain the conflict in the camps which it “controls,” a failing that has apparently also shocked the local population.
Reports from the Tindouf camps indicate that the separatists have carried out a vast campaign of arrests, which has sparked anger among the protesters who have accused the Polisario leadership of taking sides in the conflict.