Erstellt am: 21. 6. 2014 - 13:54 Uhr

Western Sahara

Reality Check takes up the story of a forgotten conflict.

The Western Sahara in North Africa is bordered by Morocco to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It is a place we don't often hear about. If you look at the geography, Western Sahara is nestled as a strip of land on the west African coast, it should be an African Saharan paradise. But the Sahrawi people there face many challenges.

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There was a war between 1975 & 1991, it was long and bloody and was essentially an armed struggle between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco. It began after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara. Then the battle began for who controls the region with powerful Morocco to the north taking the initiative of sending in its forces. The war eventually displaced people from the homes. The result of all of this being that today most of the territory of Western Sahara is under Moroccan control, while the inland parts are governed by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, managed by the Polisario Front.

CC BY 2.0, flickr.com, User: 300td.org

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And to this day, tens of thousands still populate the Sahrawi refugee camps over the border from Western Sahara into Algeria. And that seems to be one of the saddest aspects to the dispute that Western Sahara has had to endure. The war ended 23 years ago but still, somehow, thousands of Sahrawi people are still stuck in the legacy of conflict, held within a time warp of bitter division, forgotten about by the international community which seems more intent on pleasing larger players with geopolitical interests in the region that the human rights of families who are really facing the challenge of life in a tent, under the harsh conditions of the Sahara desert, relying on handouts from international NGOs for their everyday existence.

CC BY 2.0, flickr.com, User: Nicolas Raymond freestock.ca

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So who really to blame for the lack of progress here and what is being done to try to move things forward so that Sahrawi people can eventually go back home?

David Kriegleder spent time in Western Sahara and over the border in southern Algeria visiting a refugee camp that’s home to thousands of Sahrawi refugees. Hear his reports in this Reality Check Special.