At a hearing of the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, held at the European Parliament in Brussels, the DEVE Committee followed the address of MEP Dominique Bilde denouncing the continued diversion of European humanitarian aid by the polisario and Algeria and calling for an investigation into this fraud.

"Part of the humanitarian aid would be resold to help purchase military equipment, such as tanks and missiles, to name but a few, and the number of refugees would be greatly overestimated in order to capture more funding", the MEP noted.

She said that "Algeria, which has always refused to carry out a census of refugees despite repeated requests from the UN, would levy a 5% tax on this aid", deploring the fact that the populations held against their will in the Tindouf camps "are suffering during this time the worst abuses to which is added the coronavirus crisis on which the polisario maintains total omerta".

The French MEP noted that "this shady system has been documented since the OLAF investigation in 2015", wondering "when will the European Commission have the courage to put an end to this scandal and finally put the Algerian state face to face with its responsibilities".