The non-governmental organization Doctors of the World has stressed that nearly 180,000 Sahrawi refugees are facing a food and health crisis fuelled by soaring food prices due to the war in Ukraine.
The NGO has warned that this price increase, the scarce international aid and the 47 years that have passed since the Saharawi population had to take refuge in camps in Algeria because of the Moroccan occupation «are seriously deteriorating» the living and health conditions of these people.
In this regard, Doctors of the World has regretted a decrease in international funding to the Sahrawi refugees, which has fallen by almost 20 percent in the first six months of 2022 compared to the same period of 2021, which has aggravated the crises and increased the fragility of the population, especially in terms of food security.
The NGO has indicated that food in these camps depends on the monthly distributions of a basic food basket that has been alarmingly decreased in variety and quantity of products in recent months, leaving out during the month of September products such as rice, gofio or pasta.
In this way, it has specified that this basic food basket reaches only 75 percent of the population, despite the fact that the percentage of vulnerable people has already reached 91 percent of the total population.
For its part, the Sahrawi Red Crescent, in charge of food distribution in the camps, has warned that it only has emergency food for two months and stressed the urgency of responding to this crisis, which could have an impact on all aspects of people’s lives.
Doctors of the World recalled that UN data following a survey in February revealed that half of the Saharawi children between six and 59 months suffer from anemia, while one in three suffers from stunted growth and only one in three children receive an adequate diet.
He therefore called for an increase in humanitarian aid to the population in the face of a «forgotten crisis» and lamented the «devastating damage to the Saharawi refugee population», while calling on Spain to act in view of its «historical debt» and «legal responsibility towards the Saharawi people».
The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975 despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it was at war until 1991, when both parties signed a cease-fire with a view to holding a referendum of self-determination, but differences over the elaboration of the census and the inclusion or not of the Moroccan settlers have so far prevented its convocation.
On November 14, 2020, the Polisario Front declared the cease-fire with Morocco broken in response to a Moroccan military action against Saharawi activists in Guerguerat, in the agreed zone of détente, which was for the Saharawis a violation of the terms of the cease-fire.
