Laayoune, October 14, 2011 –
Forty-nine people from twelve Sahrawi families benefited Friday from a new family visit flights led by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), soaring the number of such trips to 32 in 2011.
Under this programme, members of Sahrawi families living in the Moroccan southern provinces visit their relatives in the Tindouf camps in south-western Algeria, and vice-versa.
Thirteen people belonging to five families from the Laayoune province (Morocco’s south) embarked Friday morning aboard a UN aircraft at the city’s airport bounding for Tindouf, before thirty six people from eight families landed on the same plane from the Tindouf camps, said a statement of the Moroccan coordination office with the Minurso.
The new exchange brings the number of people who benefit from the UNHCR-facilitated programme, since its launch in March 2004, to 11,929, including 5,730 people from the southern provinces and 6,199 people from the Tindouf camps.
