Pretoria (South Africa), February 9, 2019 (SPS) – South African international climate and human rights activist, Catherine Constantinides, has affirmed that her participation in the 19th edition of the Sahara Marathon, together with foreign delegations, is part of a broad international solidarity campaign with the Sahrawi people.
It is an opportunity for the world to know, through the participants from different countries, the difficult conditions experienced by the Sahrawi people in the refugee camps as well as their legitimate struggle for freedom and independence, led by its sole and legitimate representative, the Frente POLISARIO, she added in a statement Saturday.
She highlighted that her first experience in participating in this sports event, supervised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Sahrawi Republic, is to raise awareness on the Sahrawi people’s cause and struggle and victims of landmines planted by Morocco, and to honor Sahrawi freedom fighters.
She pointed out that it is an opportunity to highlight her solidarity campaign ‘#StandInTheSand ’ which gives a voice and presence to the last colony in Africa, Western Sahara.
South African activist Catherine Constantinides visited the Saharawi refugee camps on humanitarian missions several times and participated alongside Sahrawi human rights activists at the ordinary sessions of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to shed light on the suffering of the Sahrawi people and the violations committed by the Moroccan regime against the Sahrawi civilians in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.
She hosted conferences and television programs where she addressed the conflict in Western Sahara and the suffering of the Sahrawi people as a result of the continuation of the Moroccan occupation and the looting of the natural resources of the territory with the complicity of some countries, especially from Europe. (SPS)