The Sahrawis

The Sahrawis, a mixture between Berbers and Bedouins, have been living in refugee camps in the Hamada, one of the most inhospitable areas of the Sahara desert for almost 50 years. Approximately 200,000 men, women and children live in four camps that cover many kilometers near Tindouf, Algeria. Thanks to international aid there are schools and hospitals as well as food and medicine.

In 1976 Spain evacuated the region it had colonized since the late 1800’s leaving a political and administrative void. Morocco and Mauritania claimed sovereignty over the Western Sahara but the Sahrawis, who had always lived there, wanted to carry out the UN order for a referendum for self-determination. A war began between Morocco and the Sahrawis; the Moroccans even built a wall in the middle of the desert. A cease-fire was declared fourteen years later in 1990. 

Since then the Sahrawi people have patiently and peacefully waited for the UN’s Minurso, deployed for many years in the region, to organize a referendum for auto determination, which Morocco has continually boycotted. 

In November 2020 Morocco broke the cease-fire and presently there is a war going on in the Western Sahara that no one seems to know about.

I travelled three times on assignment to the refugee camps. These and other photos have been published in prestigious media outlets, exhibited in the Palau Robert in “La Vitrina del Fotografo” and highlighted in “Exposures” by Photo District News.