Frustration stalks Saharan refugee camps

Tindouf - In the refugee camps of Tindouf, home for three decades to the Western Saharan refugees in the south-west Algerian desert, a whole generation has grown up nursing dreams of independence which has failed to materialise, breeding frustration.

"Nobody talks about us in the newspapers because we don't do terrorism," complains Abidin Bucharaya, sitting in a cafe in the Awserd refugee camp.

According to the Polisario Front, to which Abadin belongs and which has been calling for the independence of Western Sahara, annexed by Morocco in 1975, "some parts of society, especially the young, want to take up arms again" to end a 1991 ceasefire.

The ceasefire has failed to lead to a referendum on self-determination as proposed under the so-called Baker Plan of former United Nations envoy and mediator James Baker.

IOL