Written by Khalid Ibrahim Khaled
The Sahrawi refugees are losing patience and the situation is getting worse by the day in view of the scarcity of food, lack of employment opportunities and dire living conditions. Frustrated young refugees do not hesitate any more to openly attack their president Mohamed Abdelaziz and his lieutenants.Demonstrations and sit-ins of protest are regularly staged in front of the headquarters of the Polisario in Rabouni. This week, the Sahrawi security services intervened ruthlessly to disperse a hundred young demonstrators affiliated to the “Revolutionary Sahraoui Youth” movement (JRS). According to eyewitnesses, troops used live ammunition to scatter the frustrated young people, injuring more or less seriously several demonstrators. The young people were rallying as they used to do in front of the Polisario headquarters to denounce Mohamed Abdelaziz and his lieutenants whom they accuse openly of being the cause and origin of the deterioration of their already dismal living conditions and of the never-ending sufferings of the populations in the Tindouf camps. The young Sahrawi refugees also blame their leaders, and particularly Abdelaziz, for their failure to reach a negotiated settlement to the conflict opposing the Polisario to Morocco.
To scare and intimidate the populations and force them to hide in their lodgings, helicopters of the Algerian Air Force have flown over the camps many times, eyewitnesses said.
The Sahrawi refugees were also banned access to the Algerian city of Tindouf where they usually purchase foodstuff supplies and gas.With the drop in humanitarian assistance, the Sahrawi refugees have been complaining over the past few months about the growing and recurrent problem of foodstuffs and fuel shortage and lack of access to drugs.The ever rising tension in the camps is not of course to the liking neither of the Polisario leadership nor of the Algerian authorities, especially after Spain ordered the evacuation of all its aid-workers from the Polisario-run refugee camps near Tindouf in Algeria for insecurity reasons.
Intelligence services of several western countries have recently warned these camps might become sanctuaries under the control of terrorists and other traffickers of all kinds.
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