About Refugees
About Refugees
About Refugees > Anti-Warehousing > Country Campaign Pages

Algeria

 World Refugee Survey
 UNHCR Map
 Millennium Challenge Corporation FY07 Country Ranking
 Millennium Challenge Corporation FY06 Country Ranking
 Anti-Warehousing Campaign Endorsers

Human Rights Watch on the Tindouf Camps

In December 2008, Human Rights Watch belatedly published Human Rights in Western Sahara and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps more than a year after the site visit to the camps that formed the basis of its findings.  The report is commendably forthright in its acknowledgement of Algeria’s responsibility for the human rights of the refugees on its territory, despite the Polisario’s self-declared state-in-exile encompassing the camps outside of Tindouf:

Algeria’s has effectively abdicated responsibility for human rights violations committed by the Polisario on Algerian territory. This is impermissible: the international community must hold the government of Algeria, along with the Polisario, accountable for any Polisario violations committed in Algeria. [p. 9]

At least in parts, it also seems admirably conscious of the constraints on free reporting that might impinge upon investigations in the camps:

the Polisario Front monopolizes political speech and marginalizes those who directly call into question its continued leadership or oppose it on fundamental issues. The camps have no dissidents, demonstrations, media or organizations of any real significance that openly challenge the legitimacy of the Polisario Front as the embodiment of the national cause, or that lobby in favor of accepting Morocco’s proposal for Saharan autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.  … 

The absence of significant political opposition is due primarily to the dominant role that the Polisario plays in allocating resources and jobs in the impoverished camps, whose population is organized into Polisario-linked mass organizations (e.g., National Union of Sahrawi Women, the Youth Union, and the General Workers Union). [pp. 9-10]  …

Westerners must obtain entry visas to Algeria, which the government does not readily grant unless the Polisario endorses the application. [p. 31] 

Unfortunately, the report does not maintain this perspicacity throughout.

Freedom of Movement

Unlike other observers (see below), HRW purported to find “little or no evidence of formal or actual restrictions on refugees leaving the camps.”   Nevertheless, an otherwise inexplicable reticence on the part of departing refugees to say where they were going pops up again and again:

Those who have left the camps for Western Sahara, however, uniformly said that they kept their ultimate destination secret, fearing that the Polisario might prevent them from traveling if it became known. This fear causes many to leave without belongings and relatives they might otherwise take with them, resulting in unnecessary stress and hardship. …  a culture of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” surrounds the process.  [p. 10]  …

former camp residents now living in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara told us that when they left the camps they concealed their ultimate destination, fearing that the Polisario would block their departure if it became known. [p. 124] …

one took an arduous desert detour around the checkpoint, fearing Polisario authorities at the checkpoint would not let him exit.   These same individuals for the most part said they kept their plans secret from others in the camps. [p. 125]  …

Invariably, people who reached Western Sahara via Mauritania told us that in order to allay suspicions that their departure was definitive they left behind most of their belongings; some limited the number of family members traveling with them.  [p. 126] 

The foreign author’s confidence in his own judgment over that of the refugees themselves as to whether the Polisario restricts movement is breathtaking in itself but then his own findings contradict it a few pages later (emphasis added):

Algerian soldiers staff checkpoints on the roads between the city of Tindouf and the refugee camps.  When traveling between the camps, it is sometimes necessary to pass through Algerian checkpoints. None of the refugees HRW interviewed complained that they could not move between the refugee camps.  Travel elsewhere within Algeria requires permission from Algerian authorities, except for the minority of Sahrawis who hold Algerian passports.  To obtain such permission, a Sahrawi must apply through Polisario authorities, who forward the request to Algerian authorities.[c]  We did not hear that the Polisario prohibited persons from traveling within Algeria because of their political beliefs or activities.  It appears, however, that Sahrawi camp residents must provide an “approved” reason for short or extended stays elsewhere in Algeria, such as enrollment in school or professional training.  Reportedly, Algerian authorities do not grant permission to Sahrawi camp residents to move, say, to Algiers merely to hunt for a job.  Human Rights Watch requested information from Algerian authorities on the freedom of movement enjoyed by Sahrawi refugees within Algeria, but received no reply.  [pp. 130-31]

Apparently, even the Algerian Government did not have the stomach to deny it but what explains the author’s blind spot?  Freedom of movement and choice of residence in Algeria is, after all, exactly what the Government of Algeria agreed to allow refugees, in addition to the right to work, when it ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.  Algeria’s labyrinthine restrictions on the rights of foreigners to work—with no exception for refugees—is well documented (e.g. annually in the World Refugee Survey ) but HRW ignores this overt violation of refugees’ rights entirely.  Maybe Orwell meant something like this when he said “To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.”  In any event, this attitude seems implicit in the condescending description of refugees’ possible desire “to move, say, to Algiers merely to hunt for a job.”

Thus, in a letter to the Polisario, HRW pleads:

while the Polisario’s stated policy may be that every Sahrawi residing in the camps is free to travel anywhere he wishes, our impression is that camp residents perceive Polisario policy in this regard in a far more restrictive fashion.

We would be grateful if you could state Polisario policy on the freedom of residents to leave the camps permanently and also the measures the Polisario has taken, or plans to take, in order to ensure that persons under its jurisdiction know their rights with respect to leaving in order to re-settle in Moroccan-administered areas.  [p. 192]

Of course, under international law, return to an area of feared persecution is not the only alternative to warehousing.

Slavery

Unlike other sources that found slavery in the camps (see below), HRW is reluctant to acknowledge anything more than “residual slavery practices that continue to affect some black residents of the Tindouf camps” [p. 10], including “the refusal by some local personal-status judges (qadi’s) to perform the act of marriage for black women informally designated as ‘slaves’ unless their ‘owners’ give their consent.  A ‘master’ is thus able to block a woman’s choice of a husband” [p. 11].  Again, as with freedom of movement, HRW will not take the refugees’ word for it, even if this means employing a dizzying array of quotation marks:

While visiting the camps, Human Rights Watch interviewed approximately eight black-skinned Sahrawis about the issue of slavery, in the 27 February camp and El-Ayoun camp. Their testimony was consistent and can be summarized as follows:  Black-skinned Sahrawis constitute a small minority of the population in the camps.  Some members of that minority are “owned” by “white” persons or families.  An “owner” previously enjoyed broad rights, de facto, over the “slave,” but today, those “rights” are limited largely to one realm: the “owner’s” ability to grant or withhold consent for a “slave” woman’s marriage, a consent without which a religious judge (qadi) will decline to perform the marriage. As one Sahrawi put it, “I don’t really know if I’m a slave or free until my daughter tries to get married.” A male “slave,” on the other hand, faces no such constraint when he wishes to marry.

Imprisoning Women for Adultery

The report is at its strongest when it limits itself to the facts and does not attempt to interpret them.  Fortunately, in 215 pages, this leaves a lot for readers to make up their own mind about.  Such as:

Justice Minister Selma told us that at the time of our visit there were six inmates in the women’s prison and none in the juvenile facility or in the center for holding unmarried women who had given birth or were pregnant. We did not visit any of these facilities.

However, Human Rights Watch received disturbing and contradictory information from the justice minister regarding the facility for unmarried mothers. In a meeting on November 10, 2007, Selma said the purpose of the facility was to protect these women and their children from so-called “crimes of honor.” He mentioned by way of example the case of a camp resident who had killed her out-of-wedlock child to fend off social pressure.

Selma said that a judge could confine a woman in this center without her consent if the judge determined her to be at risk. She could be released, the minister said, if she resolved her problem with her family, got married, or relocated to a different camp. 

In a letter to SADR President Mohamed Abdelaziz, we asked the legal basis for the detention of women with out-of-wedlock children; what safeguards were in place to ensure that women and children in “protective” detention would not remain in custody indefinitely; under what circumstances women could leave the center voluntarily; and whether any persons had been prosecuted for threatening to harm unmarried female relatives who became pregnant.

Justice Minister Selma responded to our inquiry. He stated that the women in this facility, known as the Center for Maternity Assistance, are in fact prisoners serving sentences for the offense of adultery, pursuant to the SADR Penal Code.  [Article 170 of the code states, “Adultery is punishable with a one to five-year prison sentence.  The same sentence is applicable to pregnant women.”]  “Generally,” he noted, “the rate at which these cases occur is between three and five per year.”  [pp. 139-40]

HRW does not inquire whether adultery is even a crime for which one can be imprisoned under Algerian law—it certainly is not one under international law—but does attempt to address whether authorities keep women beyond their sentences or even without sentences.  The Polisario’s justice minister helpfully clarifies: 

The institution that is responsible for this kind of women [is] more social than punitive in character. As such, the judiciary imposes verdicts that are limited to a time period long enough to address the legal, psychological and social aspects of the phenomenon, to protect the mother and child, and to reintegrate the person in question into society.

Hoping to receive a clear-cut answer, Human Rights Watch wrote back with a single question: “Are some of the women who are in this facility there "protectively" – either without having been tried and convicted of an offense, or after the expiration of a court-imposed prison term but because they are deemed to still need protection?”

The Justice Minister’s chef de cabinet, Mahfouz Lahsane, replied ambiguously, “All women who are presently in the Center for Maternity Assistance are there for their own protection and will leave once the reasons why they were entered the establishment no longer obtain.”  [pp. 140-41]

“Drastic Increase” in Camp Malnutrition (Despite Huge Oil Revenues)

According to an October 2008 survey international agencies conducted in the Tindouf camps in March and April there was an 18 percent prevalence of global acute malnutrition (GAM) in the camps and a five percent prevalence of severe acute malnutrition, “a drastic increase compared to the findings in 2005[c] when the prevalence of GAM was 8 % with 2 % being severe.”  There was a 32 percent prevalence of stunting with nine percent severely stunted and 62 percent of children aged 6-59 months suffered from anemia, six percent of them severely, with the highest rates among those 30 months old and younger.  Anemia ran 54 percent among non-pregnant women but 66 percent among the pregnant with 15 percent severely so.

The survey noted that the camps, located in a part of the Sahara known as “The Devil's Garden” subject to summer temperatures over 50°C, frequent sand storms, and little or no vegetation, are completely dependent upon international aid.  Erratic delivery causes daily caloric intakes to fluctuate from month to month and they dropped to only 500 kcal during in July and October of 2007.  Nearly half of children under five had diarrhea, of which 30 percent reported bloody diarrhea; more than half reported difficulties breathing.

In other news, Algeria's minister of energy and mining reported in September that the country’s oil revenue would reach $80 billion during the year.

“Saltana does not want to be enslaved”

Tony Calleja’s December 3, 2007 article in El Pais describes a child custody case in Spain where a Saharawi girl refuses to return to slavery in the refugee camps in Tindouf.  Excerpts (unofficial translation): 

Saltana, of Mauritanian origin, came to Spain under the guise of being the daughter of another woman, Gueiwarra El Bardi, of Saharawi origin. She assures that she worked for her in the refugee camps.  …  "In the morning they would wake me up by throwing cold water on me." …

[I]n the summer of 2002, Saltana arrived with the Peaceful Vacations program, through this organization Spanish families welcome Saharawi children who live in the Tindouf camps into their homes for a summer. They received the little girl "completely dirty and with all her clothes torn" Rosa Maria remembers. They detected that she had anemia and a chronic liver disease. …

"After several interviews with Knana (the biological mother) our representative in Zuerat (the Mauritanian town the girl was born in) thinks that it is probable that El Bardi is the master of Knana and her daughter," affirms [Enslaved SOS]. …  Saltana herself ratifies, in proper Spanish, her status as a slave in that country. "I lived with my uncle. One day a woman arrived, who came from Tindouf (Algeria), and my mother told me to go with her. When I arrived at this city they told me what I was to do.  I was to wake up very early and do the household chores, while the rest of children of that family went to class.  For that reason I do not want to return to Tindouf.  The Sahara is not my country, and I do not wish to return.  They would treat me as badly as before, and I would return to being the slave of that family."

More on Slavery in the Camps

Following up on our earlier report, here is a manumission document dated June 13, 2007 purporting to free a slave (taharir rak’ba) among the refugees in the Polisario’s camps around Tindouf.  It is signed by an official representative of the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs of the Sahirwiya Democratic Arab Republic, the Polisario’s government-in-exile.  Needless to say, slavery is not legal in Algeria and international law categorically forbids it.  

Slavery in Tindouf Camps

Australian film makers Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw of United Notions Films went to the Polisario-run camps for Sahrawi refugees near Tindouf in Algeria earlier this year initially to film the five-day visits arranged by UNHCR between refugees in the camp and relatives in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara when they noticed some anomalies.  Some of the 7,000 or so Sahrawi of African descent were denied visitation because their names did not match those of their relatives.  Instead, they bore the surnames of Arab Sahrawi in the camp.  Few wanted to talk about it initially but one refugee who had spent time in Spain broke the ice:  they had those surnames because they were the property, the slaves of the other refugees.

From the film’s synopsis:

Black Saharawis in this society have traditionally been slaves stolen or purchased from sub-Saharan Africa and converted to Islam. They are made to believe their religious duty is to serve their Moor masters.  Slaves have no official status in the society.  They cannot own property. They cannot make a legal contract. They cannot inherit.  They cannot decide whom to marry, etc.  Despite how the masters treat them, the legal status of the slaves is the same everywhere as it makes some people property of other people.

There are several thousand black Saharawi slaves who live in these refugee camps in Algeria.  They live trapped between their country’s fight for independence and their own right to freedom.  Is it possible the Polisario a liberation movement condone this state of affairs?

Born in Captivity will provide an honest picture of this society today, where slaves cannot decide their fate, masters believe that they belong to a superior race, political leaders pretend to be unaware, religion reinforces slavery and organisations like the UN stand by and do nothing.

Says one in the film’s treatment, “My name is Matala Magluf X.  I am a slave, my mother is a slave, my sisters are slaves, my entire family are slaves.  I am asking the international community to help us.  We don’t care about the political situation anymore. We have the right to be free.”

Ayala and Fallshaw were detained briefly by the Polisario, who also confiscated their mobile phone, for taking a suspicious degree of interest in the “black” Sahrawi.  (See the May 10, 2007 Reporters without Borders alert on their detention.) 

The film is still in production but should be out next summer.  In the meantime, Ayala and Fallshaw are torn between the need to publicize the issue and fear of retaliation against their informants with whom they remain in contact.  We at USCRI will stay in touch and report any incidents of intimidation of which we become aware.

NGOs Call to Free Sahrawi Refugees at UNHCR Standing Committee

UNHCR’s Standing Committee (a sub-set of its governing Executive Committee) met in Geneva, March 6-9, 2007.  NGOs made consensus statements on a number of issues and raised warehousing and refugee rights in a number of them, including one on the Middle East and North Africa condemning

the continued warehousing of Sahrawi refugees in the camps at Tindouf, Algeria.  The Polisario rebel group from Western Sahara, with the complicity of the Algerian government, has kept nearly 100,000 refugees confined to camps in the desert for more than 30 years.  A recent visit by UNHCR, the World Food Programme, and European agencies found conditions in the camps to be dire, with children suffering from acute malnutrition and high rates of anaemia among pregnant and lactating women.  In early 2006, flooding in the camps left 50,000 of the refugees homeless.  We hope that UNHCR can work to provide better protection and assistance for these refugees including freedom for the refugees to leave the camps and work to support themselves if they so choose.  Algeria’s generous treatment of some 4,000 Palestinian refugees who enjoy nearly the same rights as Algerians with regard to residence and economic activity, is the model it should follow with respect to the Sahrawi.

Young Sahrawis Want to Emigrate

In “87% of young Sahrawis want to emigrate (original in Spanish),” an October 4, 2006 article in the Futuro Saharaui (an independent newsletter published in the camps “under extremely difficult conditions” according to Afrol News ), includes the results of a survey of 540 camp residents between the ages of 17 and 35.  The results:

almost nine out of ten desire a visa to a foreign country to be able to emigrate. … "It is really a stupid waste of time to ask such a question to any young Saharawi, who has suffered from marginalisation, because a visa is our only dream left ..." is the answer from "Said", one of the young men living in the Algerian refugee camps…

The survey included all layers of the Saharawi refugee society: intellectuals, students, pupils, civil servants of the exiled Western Sahara government, workers, unemployed and even businessmen and employers. The desire to migrate was strong in all groups.

In a follow-up question, those desiring a visa were also asked why they wanted to migrate. Reasons given were ample, sometimes demonstrating a wide discontent with the situation in the camps. …

No state official however wanted to comment on this issue before printing deadline.

Salek Saluh, the 'Futuro Saharaui' reporter who conducted the survey, says …"those of us with education do not understand - or actually nobody understands - how we can be given less opportunities than those belonging to the lineage of the so-called 'patriots' and their relatives," Mr Saluh adds, referring to advantages given to family members of the ruling Polisario movement.

Warehousing Disaster in the Desert

 Algeria Flood
Flooding in Algeria left 50,000 refugees homeless.
© UNHCR/J.Gagné

Three days of torrential downpours hit camps near Tindouf, western Algeria, where Polisario guerillas, with Algerian acquiescence, have confined some 90,000 Sahrawi refugees in the desert for nearly 30 years.  The mid-February 2006 rains were unusual, literally dissolving homes and infrastructure, but similar flooding occurred in 1994.  In any event, the desolation of the harsh environment is nothing new, rendering almost the entire population nearly totally dependent upon international aid.

Portuguese and Italian military C-130 cargo planes had to fly 20 tons of tents and other emergency supplies into the remote camps all the way from Jordan and 150 tons remain. According to UNHCR, another 10-15 flights by C-130s will be needed.

“This is no solution,” said Lavinia Limón, USCRI president and CEO.  “Algeria should shut these camps down and donors should offer transportation resources to the refugees so they can relocate to more hospitable locations where they can be self-reliant while waiting for resolution of their plight.”

Aid Diversion: "28 years later the same problems persist"

In a May 12, 2005 confidential Inquiry Report, UNHCR's Inspector General's Office describes the findings of its investigations into allegations of diversion of international food from its intended beneficiaries in the camps.  Excerpts:

According to various protected sources, food and NFI [non-food items] were being diverted at the Port of Oran, en route to Tindouf and after arrival at the Rabouni warehouse in Tindouf, and were then transported to parts of Algeria, Mauritania and Western Sahara.  Again according to OLAF [Office Européen de Lutte Anti-Fraud], those responsible for the diversion of humanitarian aid were Algerian and Sahrawi nationals working for NGOs such as the Algerian Red Crescent Society ([Croissant-Rouge Algérien] or CRA) and the Sahrawi Red Crescent Society ([Croissant-Rouge Saharaoui or] CRS).  …

[The issue of the number of refugees in the camps and their registration] is intrinsically linked to the allegations of diversion of food aid…  [I]f diversion is occurring, it is likely to be at the level of the Rabouni warehouse and because the number of beneficiaries is lower than the number for whom food is provided by the international community.  …

[T]he UNHCR office in Tindouf did not conduct regular monitoring of food and NFI distributions.  In fact, such monitoring had not taken place regularly since 2001.  …  [The World Food Programme] was not able to proceed to the camps without authorization and an escort by CRS.  …

[A] reliable protected source shared their view with the IGO that it was not unlikely that food aid in particular was being sent to Western Sahara to supply troops.  …

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The most striking aspect of this inquiry is that many of these issues (problems with refugee numbers, lack of registration, lack of CRA accountability, lack of monitoring) arose as early as 1977 and 28 years later the same problems persist.  …

If the Algerian authorities do not agree to a registration exercise taking place, UNHCR and WFP should discuss unilaterally reducing the number of beneficiaries.  …

[A]n in-depth audit of CRA by OIOS Internal Audit Service is recommended together with a request to CRA to clearly identify their other donors.

End Warehousing Statement Endorsers

Organizations:

World Refugee Survey