Saharawi refugees in Algeria

My research investigates the situation in the Saharawis refugee camps in Algeria, after fleeing the UN’s second longest unresolved conflict and Africa’s last colonial war.There’s no running water in this desolate part of the stony Hamada desert, sudden rainfall turns the area into a flood bowl sweeping everything in its path. Stinging sandstorms scour the desert floor and even livestock have a hard time finding sustenance among the few plants hardy enough to grow in the bleak, flat landscape.As soon as the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara started and the vicious and bloody war diffused, more than 100,000 Saharawis made their way across the desert,under aerial bombardment, to refugee camps in Algeria. Five camps were created under the control of the Polisario Front - the Sahawaris’ national liberation movement,which had been created two years earlier to overthrow Spanish colonial rule. Algeria effectively ceded control of the region to Polisario, allowing it to be run as a emiautonomousprovince near the military town of Tindouf.35 years passed, and they still living in this refugee camps with no real perspectives to return to their homeland any time soon due to the passivity of the international community. Depending uniquely on International aid (rarely enough to guarantee the basic human condition) the isolation and lack of property created a special life in thecamps, which I’d like to introduce in this article.