Africa

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Africa

The Forgotten — Sahrawi refugees live in hope that they will return to their Western Sahara homeland

29 April-5 May, Ausserd Refugee camp , Algeria. Each of the 5 Sahrawi refugee camps in located in Algeria’s Hamada desert is named after a major town in Western Sahara, The camps were begun in 1975 to offer shelter from the war of independence against Morocco and have only grown since then.

By Susan Schulman

2 Jul 2024

Shorn of their homeland, animals and nomadic lifestyle, the firm conviction of the about 174,000 Sahrawis in refugee camps in the Algerian desert is that they will be able to one day return to Western Sahara in Morocco.

Minatu Ijatat had had enough. The 62-year-old Sahrawi refugee had arrived in the dusty Ausserd refugee camp in the desert of southwest Algeria with her family in 1976 after fleeing their home in Western Sahara when Morocco, claiming the Western Sahara territory as theirs, invaded and war broke out. More than four decades later she was still in the desolate camp and losing hope of ever returning home.

A referendum giving Sahrawis, the indigenous peoples of Western Sahara, the opportunity to choose between independence and integration into Morocco which had been the basis of a 1991 UN-supervised ceasefire agreement, had, 30 years later, still not been held. Nothing was happening. It was the last straw.

Minatu Ijatat, 62, in front of her tent at Sahrawi Ausserd Refugee Camp in Algeria, May 2024.

Minatu packed a few belongings and, feeling hopeful for the first time in years, joined a group of about 200 from the Ausserd Sahrawi refugee camp in Algeria and set off in a long parade of beaten-up vehicles headed to Guerguerat, a buffer zone on the Mauritanian border, to make a peaceful protest.

About 150 members of the group weathering the harsh, three-day journey over 2,000km of desert in scorching heat were older women who remembered life in their Western Sahara homeland before being forced to flee.

“We all forgot that we were this age. We were full of hope, full of strength. Despite our age, despite the struggle, despite being sick, we forgot all that. We just wanted to go there to defend our legitimate right to exist in our Western Sahara,” says Minatu as she pours tea, sitting in the sand in front of her home in the Ausserd camp. “We were full of hope that this could do something. Our protest there and just being there, we were hoping that that would just do something.”

The group built jaimas — Sahrawi traditional tents — and settled there. During the day, they would stand in a line in front of the border, closing the crossing. They were confident their peaceful tactics would work.

“We didn’t want a car to pass there. And that’s because we thought it would force a solution from Minursa [the UN peacekeeping force], and force the other people who are the decision-makers to hear us, to know that we’re closing this until you give us our rights.’

The Sahrawi flag is illuminated by the setting sun as it hangs from a ‘jaima’, a traditional Sahrawi tent, at the FiSahara international film festival held annually in the Ausserd refugee camp. May 2024.

It didn’t work. Twenty days after they had arrived, Morocco used force to remove the protesters. The protesters didn’t hang about.

“We left straight away,” says Minatu. “The moment they started shooting at us, we came back here.”

Brahim Ghali (below centre), president of the Sahrawi Democratic Republic, citing Morocco’s incursion into the ‘buffer zone’ where the protesters had been, declared the ceasefire over on 14 November 2020.

War between Morocco and the Sahrawi resistance army known as the Polisario Front, largely dormant since the 1991 ceasefire, resumed in earnest. Thousands fled their homes in the ensuing bombardment in the “liberated territories”— as Sahrawis call the 20% of Western Sahara not occupied by Morocco. More than 4,000 flooded into the Ausserd camp alone.

Sidate side Bahia (80) and Naim Ahmed Salm lmbarki (76) were among them.

Sidate Side Bahia in his new home in the Ausserd refugee camp.

Today they are in their home at the Ausserd refugee camp. It has been four years since they arrived here, but their suitcases remain piled up neatly against the bare concrete walls as if waiting for an imminent return to their real homes.

War veterans

Both men are war veterans. Both had fought long and hard with the Polisario Front against Morocco’s occupation in the 16-year Western Sahara War, conducted between 1975 and 1991. Then, armed with just Kalashnikovs and cars, they countered Morocco’s F-16s and Mirage fighter jets and wrested control of territory. But now, Morocco is using drones and they have no way of taking them on.

When they heard the ominous sound of the drone motors nearing their homes, they had no choice but to flee for their lives.

“The drones were there 24/7,” says Naim. “We had no time — we left only with a car. We left everything else behind — all our animals, everything.”

Dogged by the trauma of leaving their homes and animals and haunted by memories of the drones, the bleak and isolated camp offers little consolation.

“The USA said they would find a solution for us but for 30 years, we are still waiting for a solution,” says Naim, “We show ourselves to the world and the world says we are bad people — how can they think it’s bad to want our own land?

“Since coming here, I have been sick. I have felt my power slowing step by step.”

Sidate, next to him, hangs his head.

A Mirage fighter jet, downed in the war between 1975 and 1991, on display at the National Museum of Resistance. Back then, fighters brought down sophisticated aircraft with nothing more than their Kalashnikovs.

As Naim and Sidate, along with thousands of others, streamed into the camps with the resumption of war, thousands, frustrated by decades of inaction waiting for a referendum, left to join the fight — so many that volunteers were turned away, to await a later stage.

Despite being forced to flee his home, Naim is pleased war has reignited. “To me, it’s a gorgeous thing starting the way [ to regain our land],” he says. “War is a bad solution but it’s a beautiful situation compared to living like this here.” It is a widely expressed sentiment.

Sidate Side Bahia.

‘We waited and waited’

Muhammed Judu (32), Mohamed Lbachir (34), and Buda Mohammed Buda (33) are combatants. The three lifelong friends, born and raised at the nearby Layoune refugee camp, left to join the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army as soon as the ceasefire ended. They are on a 12-day leave when we speak at the Ausserd Refugee camp, where they are helping with security at the FiSahara international film festival.

Lbashir explains why so many rushed to join the fight:

“As Sahrawis, we never, ever believed in violence and we waited and waited for the international community to do something. When the ceasefire happened, they said they would do a referendum for us to go back to our homeland but no one did anything.

“We had to do something. We never chose violence. We never wanted war. But how else would get our Western Sahara?”

Mohamed Lbachir (top) at the FiSahara festival, below, at the front. (Photo: Muhammed Budu).

Mohamed Judu (left) and Buda Mohammed Buda (right) at the front. (Photo: courtesy of Lbachir and Buda).

At the front. (Photo: Courtesy of the fighters)

“We believe that it is a chance and opportunity,” adds Lbashir. “Somehow we believe it is the only chance, the only opportunity to free our people.”

It is also an obligation.

“Every single man here goes to fight, even musicians. Even 10-year-old children want to go to the war. If you didn’t go, your parents would be ashamed. They would tell you ‘We don’t want you here. We want you to go.’ Nonetheless, it is not an easy decision,” Lbashir admits.

“We are leaving our family. We are leaving our children. We’re leaving our wives. We’re leaving our parents, our sisters, our brothers, our beloved people here to go to fight. This is not easy. We are leaving our beloved ones.”

They don’t know if they will come back.

Official numbers of the dead and wounded are not available, but in Lbashir’s 200-person battalion, 11 have been killed and 15 injured in fighting he describes as “neither easy nor severe” in recent months.

“What is hardest is when a friend dies there and you are sad,” says Lbashir. “But at the same time you’re happy — sad as he left his family but happy for him to be a martyr.”

Death has haunted every family over the long years Sahrawis have been fighting to reclaim their land. Five of Lbashir’s uncles have been killed in combat, while his father too died from wounds incurred fighting in 1975.

Reclaiming their Western Sahara homeland, whatever that might involve, whatever consequences it might incur, is seen as nothing less than an existential mission.

“What we believe in, is that one is to fight for our own legitimate rights to our Western Sahara — or,” he says, determination in his eyes, “die.”

The lethal hazards of the advanced Moroccan military drones — supplied to Morocco by Turkey, China and Israel — which have transformed the battlefield, do not solely affect fighters. Civilians and animals are also being targeted. According to a recent investigation by the French newspaper L’Humanite, Morocco — using Israeli drones — has killed 86 civilians, two of whom were children, and injured another 170 since 2021.

A chart on the wall of the Sahrawi Mine Action Coordination Office office in Buj Dor, Algeria, puts faces to some of the civilians killed in drone strikes.

The approximately 174,000 Sahrawis in the five Sahrawi refugee camps in the Algerian desert live on hope. Shorn of their homeland, their animals and traditional nomadic lifestyle, their firm conviction that they will be able to return to Western Sahara one day is the glue holding the community together in camps which offer shelter, and little else.

Ausserd refugee camp, May 2024.

Refugees play games in the camp sand, improvising pieces and a board at the Ausserd Refugee camp, May 2024.

Men playing games in the sand at Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

It seems an increasingly difficult goal as the international community, motivated by investment and their own foreign policy agendas, line up on Morocco’s side. France and Spain have both acknowledged their support for Morocco’s proposed Western Sahara “autonomy” plan, which has been rejected out of hand by the Polisario, which gives nominal self-governance to the Sahrawis, while British parliamentarians and the influential British think tank Royal United Services Institute are advising the UK government to do the same.

France has recently committed to funding a 3-megawatt power cable running from Dahkla in Western Sahara to Casablanca, more than 1,600km to the north, while Morocco is building additional facilities to export Western Sahara’s valuable potash, attracting even more investors.

The most damning blow, however, was in 2020, when, under the auspices of then US President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords, the US agreed to recognise Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco recognising Israel.

It has left the Sahrawis in an even more precarious position with few supporters.

A chart on the wall of the offices of The Sahrawi Mine Action Coordination Office in Bouj Dor, Algeria, details the countries that supplied Morocco with weapons.

“I just see people dying and no one seems to notice,” says Mant Ajulha (19) in the unfurnished salon in her home in the Ausserd refugee camp. “The world has forgotten about us.”

Mant is tearful as she talks about Western Sahara, a place she has never visited but which defines her life. Born in the Ausserd refugee camp, she sees her life corralled by the plight of the Sahrawis. She will not achieve her goal of being a doctor nor will she have children, she says, only to subject them to the punishing limitations and conditions of life here.

“We want to leave here. We want to return to our land. It’s our real land,” she says, her eyes brimming with tears. “Why do we have to live in another land with another people? Why do we need someone else to help us eat and help us go to school? We don’t — we wouldn’t need any of that in our own country.

IMant Ajuhla, 19, in her home at the Ausserd Refugee Camp.

“It’s so difficult to be born in a refugee camp and hear people talking about your land, and saying, ‘Oh, it has a beautiful beach, it has beautiful fish,’” she sighs.

Yet, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, the Sahrawis’ belief that they will reclaim and return to their land endures.

Nafisa and Khalid and their 2 children, Salamu and Nejoua, picnic on the dunes of the camp, a galaxy of rubbish glitters around them. 29 April-5 May, Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria. Each of the 5 Sahrawi refugee camps in located in Algeria’s Hamada desert is named after a major town in Western Sahara, The camps were begun in 1975 to offer shelter from the war of independence against Morocco and have only grown since then.

“We have lost a lot, here and in the occupied territories. We have seen a lot of death, we have lost many people. But the one thing that we are aiming for, the one goal that we want — and we know we have the legitimate right to — is going back to our homeland in Western Sahara. And I do believe that we will go back there one day,” Minatu says, as the night closes in.

“I am never disappointed by what I have been through and what the Sahwari people had been through, because I believe that this is a long-term battle to free Western Sahara. I will never be disappointed. I believe that we will have our free Western Sahara — if not my generation, then maybe the next generation, or maybe the generation after that. But we will never stop, that’s the fact. We will never stop, none of us as Sahrawis will ever stop until we get our free Western Sahara.” DM

The Hospital at Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May. Asthma is a big problem here, in an environment of sand.
Approximately 170,00 live in the 5 Sahrawi refugee camps located in Algeria’s Hamada Desert, each named after a major town in Western Sahara, The camps were begun in 1975 to offer shelter from the war of independence against Morocco . They continue to grow in people fleeing the war, reignited when Morocco broke the ceasefire in 2020.

The hospital at Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

Waiting to be seen at the Hospital at Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

Men playing games in the sand at Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

Men playing games in the sand at Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May. Approximately 170,00 live in the 5 Sahrawi refugee camps located in Algeria's Hamada Desert.

Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

Fatima Abdullah, 24, left, Nana Saeed Donna, 72, right. Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May, 2024.

Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria, 29 April-5 May.

Ausserd Refugee camp, Algeria. Each of the five Sahrawi refugee camps located in Algeria’s Hamada Desert is named after a major town in Western Sahara. The camps were begun in 1975 to offer shelter from the war of independence against Morocco and have only grown since then.

Susan Schulman is an award-winning video, photo and print journalist.

This report was first published here.

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Africa

War veterans

‘We waited and waited’