Western Sahara News

ALGIERS – The Belgian director Pierre Yves Vandeweerd expressed on Sunday in Algiers, his surprise to see people in Europe ignore the question of Western Sahara, without any knowledge of the struggle and suffering of the Saharawi people. I just feel that the Saharawi question is not raised in Europe. I am always surprised when people tell me after seeing my film, they thought there was more conflict in the region, “said the director to the press before the screening of his documentary” Lost Land ” Days in the film engaged in Algiers.

Le réalisateur belge, Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd, est l’une des figures marquantes de cette manifestation. Le cinéaste a ainsi présenté son dernier documentaire sorti le 30 novembre dernier autour de la question sahraoui. «Territoire perdu» perdu est le titre de ce film-documentaire de 74 minutes dans lequel, le réalisateur exprime son engagement envers ce peuple longtemps spolié de sa terre et dont l’opinion internationale reste indifférente. Avant de laisser place aux images poignantes d’un peuple qui souffre en silence, le réalisateur Vandewweerd a exprimé avec désenchantement de voir encore des personnes en Occident,

NOUAKCHOTT — Mauritanian police said Monday they had arrested two Western Saharan men suspected of kidnapping an Italian and two Spanish aid workers in Algeria in October. "The two men who kidnapped two Spaniards and an Italian in a Sahrawi refugee camp were arrested in their hotel in the town of Nouadhibou where they had been for 11 days," a police source said on condition of anonymity. One of the suspects was identified as Maminna Alaaguir Abdel Aziz Ahmed Baba who the source said was the main perpetrator of the October 23 abduction in the Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf

Chahid El-Hafed (refugee camp) – More than a thousand foreigners representing several countries are expected in December in the refugee camps to express their full solidarity with the Saharawi cause. visits to camps and liberated territories will continue until ‘December 12, said SPS. The National Director protocol, Mohamed Habib Allah Al-Kouri SPS was emphasized that “the increasing number of foreign visitors denotes proven unlimited solidarity towards the cause of the Saharawi people suffering the pangs of exile for over three decades” .

AROUND 1,000 Spanish people have travelled to Tindouf in Western Sahara this weekend, just a month after two aid workers were kidnapped. The hostages, Enric Gonyalons and Ainhoa Fernández de Rincón, both from Spain, are believed to be in the hands of a Moroccan Al-Qaeda cell, and have not yet been released. Three charter flights from Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and Sevilla took members of the nationwide Friends of the Sahara People Association to the border town, which lies in disputed territory between Western Sahara and Algeria, who appeared unfazed by the possible risks they faced.

On 30 November 2011, prominent human rights defender Ms Aminatou Haidar was presented with the René Cassin Human Rights Award for 2011 by the Department of Justice of the Basque Regional Government.  Aminatou Haidar is the Chairperson of the Collectif des Défenseurs Sahraouis des Droits de l'Homme - CODESA (Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders).

23 Saharawi prisoners have today, December 1, been on an indefinite hunger strike for one month, bringing awareness to the plight of the Saharawi people of Western Sahara, invaded and occupied illegally by Morocco in 1975, and who have since been denied the right to a vote to determine their future. What does the world community do? Nothing. Morocco annexed, invaded and repopulated Western Sahara against international law in 1975 and has since refused to hold a referendum on independence or autonomy. Now there are allegations that Morocco is illegally exploiting the resources of the territory it annexed.