El Khattat Bendir Babait is a Saharawi businessman in El-Gargarat and was, on Thursday, March 12, kidnapped there and afterwards taken to the El-Gargarat border crossing where he was handed over to Moroccan Gendarmes, eyewitnesses told Équipe Média reporters.
According to those witness reports, he had been taken into custody by a paramilitary group, reportedly related to the Moroccan secrete service agency DGST (Direction Générale de la Surveillance Territoriale).
50-year-old Khatar Bendir Babit had suffered a haemorrhage long before he was taken to hospital, in the occupied city of Dakhla, the day after. His knee needed surgery and both feet a plaster mould to heal the fractures diagnosed, while stitches were necessary to close other wounds all over his body. Somebody in the goods transport business had seen that four 4WD manned by a group of 20 armed with pistols and machetes turned up in El-Gargarat, at 6pm on Thursday, and attacked both, El Khattat Bendir Babait himself and his Mauritanian assistant. They then disappeared taking El Khattat Bendir Babait with them in an already critical state of health, due to the aggression. The witness also quoted among many reasons for attacking Babito there was his latest attempt: trying to block the border crossing to prevent him from delivering goods to the occupied territories, confronting a gang of thugs whose activies are coordinated by the the authorities of the occupiers.
On a recording we have just received from the Mauritanian who has been employed as El Khattat Bendir Babait’s parking attendant for two years, he testifies that they were attacked by an armed mafia: ”They cut my arm hitting it with a machete. Some Saharawi friends took me to the hospital in Nouadhibou; there I also reported the aggression to the Mauritanian police.”
On the other hand, the kidnapped man’s brother assured us that a convoy of Moroccan gendarmes and police escorted the mistreated Saharawi to Dakhla, ob Friday morning, and that a police spokesperson alledged they had nothing to do with the case and he was kidnapped by a local mafia.
Équipe Média – March 13, 2020
Moroccan-occupied El-Aaiun
