UNHCR makes landmark visit to sahrawi refugee camp

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres visited Sahrawi refugees in the Algerian governorate of Tindouf last week as part of an effort to reunite families separated by the Western Sahara conflict.

Guterres, whose five-day tour of Algeria and Morocco ended Saturday (September 12th), said the UNHCR's proposal for a direct, straight-line land corridor between Tindouf and Laâyoune had been accepted as the best solution by all parties.

So far, 8,000 people have been on such visits, said Guterres, who on Saturday attended one such reunion. According to MAP, 33 people from seven families flew from the Moroccan city of Es Smara to Tindouf on a UN aircraft, which brought another 33 people from five families to Morocco.

"These visits have tremendous humanitarian importance," Guterres said.

This was the 27th exchange of family visits this year, according to official data, but Guterres said 42,000 people were still on the waiting list.

During his trip, Guterres expressed the wish that a political solution be found to the Western Sahara question because, he said, humanitarian aid can only have a palliative effect, whereas a political settlement would be once and for all.

Last week's visit was only the second to the camps in Tindouf by a United Nations High Commissioner. The first was made by Saddrudin Aga Khan in 1976, just after the refugees' arrival.

After discussions on Tuesday with Algerian Minister for Maghreb and African Affairs Abdelkader Messahel, Guterres hailed Algeria's "generosity" in granting protection to Sahrawi refugees over such a long period of time.

At the Friday press conference, Guterres said Algeria had asked for more humanitarian aid to the Tindouf camps, as the present levels are insufficient.

However, "the UNHCR has replied that any increase will remain linked to a census of the population in these camps," said Guterres. "Algeria does not accept this, and we have not revised our estimate [of the refugee population's size]."

By Polisario estimates, over 165,000 Sahrawis live in Tindouf; the UNHCR says it provides aid to 90,000 "vulnerable" refugees there, without providing a total number.

Guterres said the proposed census had nothing to do with political considerations, but was simply a humanitarian measure needed until a solution could be found to the Western Sahara question.

For his part, Polisario leader Mohamed Abdelaziz said he was convinced that his movement would derive "some benefit" from the UNHCR's "new vitality", according to the Sahrawi press agency SPS.

Abdelaziz described the visit as a "great gesture of solidarity during this holy month of Ramadan, which will no doubt have a positive impact in relieving the suffering of Sahrawi refugees".

Moroccan Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation Taïb Fassi Fihri said that Morocco will do all it can to increase the number of family visits.

To accomplish this, "a technical study will be carried out to look into the land-based solution", he said.

MAP quoted Fassi Fihri as saying, "We need the UNHCR, not only to carry out the humanitarian mandate of the agency, but also to help us find a lasting solution" to the situation in the Tindouf camps.

UN: Western Sahara refugees forgotten

'Not enough has been done'

UN refugee agency head: 'international community should wake up' to help Western Saharans.

By Pierre-Yves Julien - TINDOUF

The head of the UN refugee agency Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the international community had forgotten Western Sahara's refugees, at the end of a visit to their desert camps.
"I recognise that not enough has been done and that the international community should wake up," he said, adding that "we have to work more and better" for the 165,000 refugees in the Tindouf camp complex.
"These refugees are living for tens of years in precarious conditions. With this visit I want to better know their needs in order to be able to bring them more aid in the most effective way possible," Guterres said as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Tindouf, 1,800 kilometres south of the capital Algiers.
Guterres is the first head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to visit the camps since 1976, shortly after they were created to cope with the refugees when the former Spanish colony was annexed by Morocco in 1975.
Morocco claims historical sovereignty over the colony and has proposed a plan for broad self-government, but no independence.
The armed Polisario Front, supported by neighbouring Algeria, is demanding independence for the territory and a referendum on self-determination.
"I do not have a political mandate," said Guterres during his visit, "but the solution cannot be other than political."
Several rounds of talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front in Manhasset near New York failed to achieve a breakthrough and a fresh series of negotiations began under UN auspices in Durnstein near Vienna on August 10 to try to break the deadlock.
The new UN special envoy to the Western Sahara, Christopher Ross said that another round of talks would go ahead "as soon as possible" at a place and time to be specified.
Representatives from Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front, and from Mauritania, which lies south of the Western Sahara and briefly controlled part of it before Morocco annexed the whole territory, attended the talks.
Polisario secretary general Mohamed Abdelaziz welcomed Guterres' visit as another sign of "a change, a new vitality that we have noted on the part of the UNHCR."
The visit contributes to a favourable ambiance for the negotiations to continue," he added.
Meanwhile, Guterres committed the UNHCR to improving conditions for the camps' inhabitants.
He described "the necessity to increase aid to health and education" as priorities, but also said work needed to be done to improve simple everyday conditions like access to water.
At the end of July, the UN released 1.5 million dollars in emergency intervention funds to strengthen its humanitarian assistance programme on which nearly all the refugees depend.
The UNHCR recently launched an appeal for around 6 million dollars to boost aid to the refugees but only 44 percent, some 2.6 million, had been forthcoming from donor countries by the end of july, said a UN source.
Guterres was due to leave for talks in Morocco later Thursday.