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ABOVE: Malainin Aomar, 66, a Polisario Front soldier, watches the Moroccan Wall near Auserd, in Polisario-controlled Western Sahara. Aomar joined the Polisario Front in 1974 because he supported its aim of liberating Western Sahara from almost 100 years of Spanish occupation. ‘For me, the only future is the liberation of my country and my people,’he says.‘We have to go back to war. We don’t like war, but we have to finish this situation. We have been waiting for 34 years, it’s enough’; BELOW: Lahbieb Embarek Ahmed, 47, in the desert with his camels near the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. ‘[The] only thing I know is camels. I have lived with camels and they have lived with me and that’s all I know,’ he says. ‘The peace process is a good thing. My land is very beautiful but I am like the others; what will happen to them will happen to me. I am with the majority; if they choose war, I am with them’ 28 www.geog raphical.co.uk January 2011
page 29
| photostory Sahrawi | ABOVE: Hamdi Jaafar Mohammed, 46, a Polisario Front soldier in Polisario-controlled Western Sahara.‘During the invasion, I was a young boy,’he says.‘I saw my neighbours being forced to leave, women and children walking and travelling in trucks. The Moroccans intervened in a barbaric way in occupying our cities. I fled with my brothers. It took more than one month of walking before we reached the camps. Many, many people died’; BELOW: Ihaka Sidahmad Embark, 34, a musician, in the 27th of February camp, Algeria. Embark was a member of a band in the Moroccan-occupied territory, but the group had to flee when the anti-government messages in their songs attracted attention. ‘The Sahrawi people are here doing nothing, just waiting for war,’ he says. ‘The message the world is sending us is that we must go back to war, then the world will say, “Ah, Western Sahara, we must do something for them!”’ January 2011 www.geog raphical.co.uk 29

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ABOVE: Malainin Aomar, 66, a Polisario Front soldier, watches the Moroccan Wall near Auserd, in Polisario-controlled Western Sahara. Aomar joined the Polisario Front in 1974 because he supported its aim of liberating Western Sahara from almost 100 years of Spanish occupation. ‘For me, the only future is the liberation of my country and my people,’he says.‘We have to go back to war. We don’t like war, but we have to finish this situation. We have been waiting for 34 years, it’s enough’; BELOW: Lahbieb Embarek Ahmed, 47, in the desert with his camels near the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. ‘[The] only thing I know is camels. I have lived with camels and they have lived with me and that’s all I know,’ he says. ‘The peace process is a good thing. My land is very beautiful but I am like the others; what will happen to them will happen to me. I am with the majority; if they choose war, I am with them’

28 www.geog raphical.co.uk January 2011

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