Sahrawi refugees hope to return to the Sahara after MINURSO ends
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on SABC News
Binina Mohamed, a Sahrawi refugee who has lived for decades in a camp near Tindouf, wants her children to discover their homeland in the Sahara. The difficulties of returning have come to the fore after MINURSO’s mandate ended, Reuters reports, after gathering refugees’ testimonies during a visit organised by the Polisario.
Binina Mohamed, a 51-year-old Sahrawi refugee living in a camp near Tindouf, hopes her daughters will be able to see their homeland after the end of MINURSO’s mandate, the UN mission in the Sahara. She has spent her life in exile in Algeria, according to Reuters, which met her during a visit organised by the Polisario Front.
Her daughters, now aged 20 and 30, have never visited the region their mother left. Safia Al-Saleh, 33, said she hoped her two children and grandchildren could grow up and study in their own country rather than live as refugees, according to Reuters.
The conflict pits Morocco against the Polisario Front, a political and military movement backed by Algeria that claims an independent state in the Sahara. Thousands of Sahrawis fled the fighting to the Tindouf region, where the Polisario administers five camps. MINURSO monitored the UN-backed ceasefire agreed in 1991.
The end of the mandate comes after Russia vetoed a US draft resolution supporting Morocco’s autonomy plan, followed by the rejection of a rival Russian text, Reuters reports. It follows the UN vote on the future of MINURSO on 30 October and the end of the mission’s mandate, announced on 2 November.
