[ecr]  In a letter to Guterres, Brahim Ghali, who also serves as the Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, urged the UN Secretary-General to "take all necessary steps to compel Morocco to account for its blatant violations of international humanitarian law" and to "exercise the authority granted to him by the UN Charter and its relevant resolutions to ensure the protection of the Sahrawis’ fundamental rights in the occupied Western Sahara, a territory awaiting decolonization."

He also drew the attention of the UN Secretary-General and the Security Council members to "the serious situation in the occupied Sahrawi territories due to the ongoing repression and violence committed by the Moroccan occupier against the Sahrawi civilians."

The Sahrawi President shed light, in his letter, on “the scorched earth policy” led by the Moroccan occupation authorities by expropriating the Sahrawi people of their land, destroying their houses and tents, their means of subsistence, their livestock and by polluting their wells in order to “tear them away from their land and settle more Moroccan colonists on the territory as part of an intensive colonization policy” aimed to “modify the territory’s demographic composition and perpetuate the occupation.”

In this regard, he recalled that Morocco has conducted "an accelerated and intensive campaign of confiscating large tracts of Sahrawi lands," especially after the breakdown of the ceasefire by the occupier in November 2020, noting that the latter not only expropriates the Sahrawis from their lands, but also denies them the right to assemble peacefully, continuing its repressive policy aimed at silencing Sahrawi voices and subjecting them to physical and psychological torture as well as degrading practices.

Moreover, the Secretary-General of the Polisario Front denounced the collective punishments imposed by the Moroccan occupier against the Sahrawi civilians through a policy of impoverishment, famine, deprivation, exclusion and racial discrimination, drawing attention to the Moroccan occupation forces' use of drone attacks, which have resulted in the death of around a hundred civilians.

The "heinous" crimes perpetrated by the Moroccan occupation authorities against the Sahrawi political prisoners, particularly those of the Gdeim Izik group, were also raised in Brahim Ghali's letter, who once again called on the UN Secretary-General to "take all necessary measures to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of all Sahrawi political prisoners so that they can return to their homeland and reunite with their families."

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