The Refugee Camps in Tindouf: Is There Another Way?

The refugee camps in Tindouf were established by the Polisario Front, the Algerian state and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as an immediate emergency response to Sahrawis fleeing Western Sahara as the Moroccan occupation began. The camps are located in the western corner of Algeria and house between 90,000 to 165,000 Sahrawi refugees. Established in 1975, thousands of Sahrawi refugees have spent almost five decades in the camps while others have come and gone. Over the years, the camps have transformed into an established civilization with a state-like structure divided into four villages with internal municipalities and neighbourhoods, all of which are named after landmarks and places in Western Sahara, to remind the camps’ population of their homeland. 

The quick establishment of the camps in Tindouf was absolutely necessary to stabilise the number of Sahrawi refugees seeking to leave the occupied territories, and such an immediate solution was welcomed by many international organisations which sought to find possible long-term avenues. However, looking back, the immediate ‘success' of the camps also contributed to the conflict being portrayed as less urgent to resolve, as a large part of the Sahrawi population was now considered safe from the violence of the Moroccan state. Increasingly fewer international organisations thus put in an effort to stabilise and mediate the conflict. Even though the word about the ‘success' of the camps spread in the international community, the reality in the camps was very different. Families have suffered from extreme poverty and food insecurity for decades as international organizations changed priorities and also wrongly estimated the number of inhabitants in the camps, sometimes differing by tens of thousands. In addition, the camps face large challenges regarding access to water as knowledge about how to treat, store and distribute it is close to nonexistent. It is therefore unsurprising that an increasing number of people in the camps are distressed and seeking alternative solutions. 

A continuous question is: why can’t the Sahrawis simply return to the occupied territories? The answer is clear – returning would pose a huge safety risk. The few Sahrawis who have chosen to stay in the occupied territories are constantly put at risk by the Moroccan authorities, as well as the Moroccan settlers in the area, as the Sahrawis are often subject to harassment and violence. International organizations have concluded that in the occupied territories, there is no guarantee that human rights are or will be respected, as few international organisations are granted access to surveil the human rights situation. In addition, Sahrawis in the occupied territories are subjected to violations of their freedom of speech, their freedom of association and their freedom of assembly. There have also been numerous reported cases of Sahrawi activists being imprisoned on false ground after unfair trials, and many of those have also been subject to torture and harassment from Moroccan authorities. 

Over the years, the international community has tried to facilitate negotiations and propose peace plans. However, all such efforts have proved insufficient as both Morocco and the Polisario Front continuously violate cease-fire agreements and reject peace plans and possible solutions. The international community further questions whether the camps should even be allowed to exist, as they could prevent serious matters from being dealt with urgently. Such matters include long-term plans for reintegrating refugees and plans for rebuilding necessary infrastructure. Though the conclusion in the case of the camps in Tindouf has been clear, the camps need to remain as few other options are available. 

The two most recent and possibly realisable solutions proposed are: West Saharan autonomy under Morocco and “The new capital solution.” The option of West Saharan autonomy under Morocco is supported by the Moroccan regime, however, the international community opposes this as long as the situation in Moroccan politics prevails. For such a solution to be realizable in terms of human rights, the international community has concluded that the Moroccan regime would need a great democratic transition as well as a major decentralisation of the state. Thus, as expected, this option was rejected by the Polisario Front. The second proposed option is that the inhabitants of the Tindouf camps would slowly move to the liberated territories of Western Sahara, especially to the area surrounding the capital of Tirafiti. However, such a solution is estimated to be problematic as well, as Tirafiti is located only five miles from the defense front and could contribute to a renewal of the armed conflict in the area. In addition, the area is close to inhabitable; it completely lacks natural resources and is composed of only a small strip of land the size of barely a third of Western Sahara. Though there are clear complicating circumstances, this is the favoured option by the Polisario Front as it means that the Sahrawis could partly return to their land. 

As these are the currently most favoured options for a possible solution, the idea of a referendum for the Sahrawis is out the window. Many blame the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) as a significant subject in enabling the stalemate situation to prevail, as they have continuously failed to provide and create an environment where a referendum is safe to be held. If MINURSO had had a more sufficient mandate as well as a better structure from the beginning, a referendum could possibly have been held in the 1990s as initially planned. To hold the referendum today is considered close to impossible, not only due to the humanitarian situation but also the lack of authentic representation of Sahrawi opinions, as Sahrawis have now become a minority in their own land.

Actors of the United Nations, unfortunately, complicated the conflict even further as Ban Ki-Moon publicly mentioned the occupation of Western Sahara during a visit to the Tindouf camps in 2016. Even though he was correct from the perspective of the international community, this ravished the diplomatic relations with Morocco. As a response, the Moroccan government retracted all of their financial support to MINURSO and demanded that all 84 international civil staff members leave the country. This signified that no surveillance of human rights was allowed in Morocco or the occupied territories, putting the Sahrawi population in the occupied territories even more at risk. 

The humanitarian situation in the camps is evidently unfavourable, as it consequently results in prolonged and extreme poverty and human rights abuses of thousands of Sahrawis. However, few other options seem realisable at the moment. The question does however prevail – do these camps therefore pose a durable long-term solution? Even though the international community continuously answers no, little effort has been put into actually changing the situation, neither in the camps nor in the occupied territories.