The Sahrawis of Western Sahara
1 January 1984
From the MRG Archive
The Sahrawi people is fighting for its survival, working to reverse the illegal sale of its territory, in 1975, by the previous colonial power, Spain, to Morocco and Mauritania. The new forces of occupation are opposed by the Algerian-backed Sahrawi army. The greater part of the Sahrawi civilian population has fled to refugee camps in Algeria, and the rest are in the war zone - each group living in conditions of extreme hardship. The Sahrawi case has the support of major international and humanitarian agencies. Nevertheless, the course of events has depended less on justice for a suffering people than on enmities and calcualting a political interplay of several nations with ideological and economic interests in the territory.
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