UNHCR and Sahrawi Refugees
Cover photo: A Sahrawi refugee woman recalls her experiences with the UNHCR Family Reunification Program.
BACKGROUND
The Western Sahara refugee situation is the oldest unresolved, protracted humanitarian crisis in United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) history. For over 44 years, families living in the Western Sahara Territory and the refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria have been separated. The Sahrawi people are at risk of losing their culture and their identity due to the protracted nature of this political impasse. Since 2002, the UNHCR Western Sahara Operation has focused on “Confidence Building Measures” (CBM). It built a “humanitarian bridge” between the Western Sahara Territory and the refugee camps.
The CBM program was widely hailed as a significant humanitarian achievement in an otherwise hopeless refugee situation. The program was suspended in 2014, due to disagreements between the parties to the conflict (POLISARIO Front and government of Morocco). There have been no family visits since then, and until 2017, the Western Sahara Operation was unable to implement any activities. For more background information and details on the CBMs please refer to Feinstein’s Western Sahara research project page.
REPORTS
Beginning in 2017, the Refugees in Towns Project coordinated with UNHCR’s Western Sahara office to 1) capture the institutional and experiential memory of UNHCR’s Confidence Building Measures programming for Sahrawi refugees that had not previously been systematically recorded, and 2) explore the interests for humanitarian programming of refugees and regional stakeholders since the family visit flight program ended in 2014.
See the April 2020 Operational Update for the latest on UNHCR’s programming. To learn about the experiences of Sahrawi refugees and UNHCR personnel, see the “Flights Above the Fray” report, and the “Reuniting Sahrawi Families” short film. For background on the situation, see the report “A Frozen Conflict and a Humanitarian Program that Works,” and UNHCR’s Operational Update from April 2018.
Media
This video describes a UNHCR program to reunite separated Sahrawi families for short visits.
Karen Jacobsen is the founder of the RIT Project. She is the Henry J. Leir Professor of Global Migration at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy's Institute for Human Security.
Filip Papas is the Head of Operations of UNHCR, Laayoune, Western Sahara Territory.
Heba El-Hendi is a case study researcher with the RIT Project.
Charles Simpson is Program Administrator of the RIT Project.