Rabat – The call on the Spanish aid workers to evacuate the Tindouf camps, southwestern Algeria is “upheld until the security situation improves in the camps,” said on Monday Spanish State secretary for Foreign affairs, Gonzalo de Benito.
Benito, who was speaking at a joint press conference with Moroccan delegate minister for Foreign Affairs, Youssef Amrani, said Spain has advised its citizens to leave the Tindouf camps following intelligence on serious threats against their lives, recalling the “difficult experience” Spain has gone through in October 2010 after the kidnapping of its workers in the Polisario-run camps.
Spain is concerned about the degradation of the security situation in the Sahel-Sahara region in general, and particularly in Mali, because of the proximity of this region to Europe and its role as a source of illegal immigration and a host of instability pockets, Benito said.
Three hostages, including two Spaniards and an Italian, were kidnapped on October 23, 2011 in Tindouf before being freed past July 18 in northern Mali.
The Benito-Amrani meeting discussed means to face security threats in the Sahel-Sahara region. The officials stressed in a joint declaration the need to put in place coordination mechanisms to seek sustainable solutions to this problem.
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