Free all prisoners, UN tells belligerents

The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) and the French government on Thursday hailed the release of 115 Moroccan political prisoners by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario Front). However, MINURSO said both sides should free all long-term prisoners. "The continued detention of prisoners of war is a serious humanitarian issue", MINURSO said, adding that it "strongly supports the Security Council's call on the parties to release, without further delay, all those held since the start of the conflict". Both Polisario and the Moroccan government hold prisoners captured during the 26-year war between the liberation movement - which wants self-rule for Western Sahara - and Morocco, which took over the former Spanish colony when Spain pulled out in 1975. In December, the International Committee of the Red Cross, also appealed for release of nearly 1,500 prisoners, after visiting 680 prisoners held by Polisario in eight detention centres. It found 1,028 prisoners who had spent between 20 and 26 years in detention. A human rights group, the Western Sahara Referendum Support Association, on Wednesday charged that Sahraoui prisoners were being held in inhuman conditions in Moroccan jails. It accused the Moroccan authorities of brutally dispersing a demonstration by 70 mothers of detained Sahraoui. MINURSO was deployed in 1991, to monitor a ceasefire and organise a referendum to allow the people of Western Sahara to decide the future of the territory. On 27 November 2001, the Security Council extended the mission's mandate until 28 February, to allow further efforts to find a durable solution to the dispute.