A report released Thursday in Washington, said that the Sahara conflict opens the door for the expansion of activities of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in the Maghreb and Sahel regions, citing the recent AQIM operations, namely the kidnapping of three European humanitarian workers inside Polisario camps in Tindouf.

Young people in the Tindouf camps may fall into the hands of terrorist groups

Before the new informal meeting on the Sahara issue, expected in February, the Information Centre of the United Nations in New York, interviewed on Tuesday, Christopher Ross, the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General to the Sahara, about the situation of this issue.

The Commission for External Relations and Defence at the Belgian Senate rejected, on Tuesday in Brussels, a resolution proposal hostile to the Moroccanity of the Sahara presented by the Flemish nationalist party N-VA (opposition).

Spain hopes that a “just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution” to the Sahara issue will be achieved, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Garcia Margallo said.

France draws attention to the situation of human rights in the camps of Tindouf, in the Algerian territory, which must “be improved” and calls for conducting a census of the camps’ populations, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé said.