RPN 18 published January 1995

8. Floods hit Saharawi refugees in south west Algeria, 55,000 without shelter by John Howe

Since 1975, 165,000 Saharawis have been living in exile, awaiting Moroccan military withdrawal from Western Sahara and a fair referendum on the fate of the region. Despite a ceasefire in 1991 and plans for a referendum in January 1992, the Saharawis have continued to wait as the UN peace plan has stalled, mainly on the issue of voter eligibility. A report in November 1994 by the UN Secretary General indicates that the latest scheduled date for the referendum (February 1995) will be further postponed.

Quite unnecessarily, nature sometimes reminds desert people that it is cruel by sending them too much water all at once. Many died in a series of flash floods in Mauritania a few years ago. In 1994 it was the turn of the Saharawi refugees who suffered severe storms on 8-9 October and again on 29-30 October when 30mm fell in little over 24 hours. The high winds that accompanied the storms simply blew tents away and scattered their contents, depriving some 55,000 people of shelter at the beginning of winter. The El Ayoune camp was totally destroyed, its permanent buildings - schools, hospitals and administrative structures built of soluble mud brick - washed away by torrents of water pouring off the nearby escarpment. Eight lives were lost.

One reason why the Saharawi refugees from the Moroccan occupation of their country live in the bleak Hammada, south of Tindouf in Algeria, is the relative abundance there of good underground water. From an aircraft, the structures of gigantic river systems are clearly visible: branching clusters of watercourses which look in surprisingly good repair. But on the ground, although there is nearly always some form of vegetation somewhere nearby, it feels so utterly arid that the idea of a torrent of water seems, and usually is, just a longing fantasy induced by thirst. Because of course the problem with water in the Sahara is that there is not nearly enough, and what there is is usually deep underground, often undrinkably saline. So desert-dwellers are largely controlled by available water supplies: their location, quality and abundance, and the need to use them wisely and prevent them from evaporating or becoming polluted.

The Saharawis have pitched their camps as close to the water as possible: on low ground in the dry river beds, where there is some slight shelter from the wind, where it takes less digging to get to water, where there may even be a dusting of vegetation in spring (although less than in the pretty oueds of Western Sahara with their acacia, carob and fragrant camomile). Some of the camps have been there for twenty years and there are numerous permanent buildings made of sun-dried mud brick, a low-cost material which suits arid climates - but which disintegrates in water.

Polisario - the Saharawi liberation movement formed in 1973 and still being stretched on the rack of the endlessly-delayed UN peace plan - has appealed for material and financial aid to help with the rebuilding and with rehousing the victims. Algeria, which shelters these refugees, has given them generous support over the years but is currently suffering political and economic difficulties of its own. International agencies react fastest to the plight of people whose lives are under immediate threat but are slower in cases of hardship merely made harder. So help is certainly needed.

For more information, contact: Western Sahara Campaign Northern Office, Oxford Chambers, Oxford Place, Leeds LS1 3AX, UK, tel/fax 0113 245 4786 or, in other countries, the nearest Polisario Office.

Return to Top of Page

July 1997