TINDOUF, Algeria — Binina Mohamed was born 51 years ago, around the time the Western Sahara conflict forced her family into exile. She has spent her life in a refugee camp near Tindouf, among tens of thousands of Sahrawis who continue to wait for a resolution to the dispute over their homeland.
The conflict pits Morocco, which claims sovereignty over Western Sahara, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state. The confrontation intensified after Spain left the territory in 1976, while a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991 brought an end to years of guerrilla warfare. UN peacekeepers monitored the ceasefire until a recent Security Council dispute left the mission without a renewed mandate.
The Polisario administers five refugee camps in southwestern Algeria, where families displaced by the conflict have lived for decades. During a visit organised by the Polisario, Mohamed told Reuters that her daughters, now in their twenties and thirties, had never seen the region she considers home.
“I do not want them to reach the age of 50 without seeing their homeland,” she said.
Her 33-year-old daughter, Safia Al-Saleh, said she hoped her own children would avoid the same fate. “I want my children and my grandchildren to study and grow up in their own country, not to grow up like us here, as refugees, with nothing,” she said.
The latest diplomatic dispute followed the Security Council’s support last year for Morocco’s proposal to place Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty with autonomy for the territory. Russia, which had abstained the previous year, vetoed a US-drafted resolution that would have reaffirmed that approach. A rival Russian resolution was then defeated, leaving the UN mission without a mandate renewal.
At the council, Algeria defended the Polisario position and pointed to declining aid and the difficult conditions facing refugees. Morocco’s representative blamed Algeria for conditions in the camps and accused it of preventing refugees from returning. He also called for the UN to register the refugees, arguing that people of other nationalities were present.
Algeria and the Polisario say more than 160,000 people live in the Tindouf camps. UNHCR says it assists an estimated 90,000 of the most vulnerable refugees. Morocco disputes those figures, citing the absence of a UN census, and accuses Algeria and the Polisario of using Sahrawis for political purposes. Algeria rejects that accusation.
Residents describe shortages of water and the effects of the region’s harsh climate. The World Food Programme said earlier this year that more than 80% of camp residents depend on humanitarian aid to meet basic food needs.
Aisha Salem, Mohamed’s 24-year-old daughter and a Polisario fighter, said she wanted future generations to escape displacement and deprivation. Mohamed expressed the same exhaustion after decades in exile: “We want stability. We are tired of being refugees.”
Sources: Investing.com News.