International
The trunks of the Saharawi return that stayed in the Tinduf camps
Like all Saharawi refugees, Mestehia Jatri used the zinc sheets that make the roof in the houses of the camps of Tinduf, Algeria, to build her return trunk that would fill with bedens to return in 1992 to her native Western Sahara.
They never returned, but he keeps the ark in the yard of that frustrated longing.
“When they told us (that the referendum was agreed and close to being held) we were very happy and all the families began to assemble the trunks of the return. In each jaima you saw one,” he tells EFE Mestehia in front of his own that contained “that happiness of returning home.”
The trunks that the families kept represented for years in the camps the expected return of the refugee and the promises of independence but, while hope moved away, the needs for a life in exile increased. Most had to recycle the zinc sheets to re-make the roofs.
“Eight years after setting up our return trunk, we recycled it again and there are its veneers,” says the roof of one of his rooms Fatimetu Hamed, a neighbor of Mestehia.
“The UN has lied to us and left us here as refugees forever,” Fatimetu conveys a feeling of frustration.
Mestehia was born in 1953 in the town of Guelta, in the then Spanish Sahara, and today resides in Smara, one of the five camps built in the Algerian desert in 1975 to house those fleeing violence. Her husband died in the war between the Polisario Front and Morocco in the 1980s.
Like all refugee camps, temporarily provided for being a status that is expected to be transitory, it lacks infrastructure, industries, and its approximately 173,000 inhabitants subsist mainly from humanitarian aid in an environment of adverse climatic conditions.
The Polisario Front, a movement that fights for the independence of Western Sahara, manages these camps from Rabuni, a site that houses the institutions and where the international cooperative members who work throughout the humanitarian network reside without which they could not survive.
“The Saharawis are refugees for a political cause, they are here because their land is occupied and because the UN has not yet fulfilled its promise to resolve their conflict by holding the referendum,” says in an interview with EFE Buhubeini Yahya, president of the Saharawi Red Crescent, the main humanitarian organization in the camps.
“The humanitarian situation is very serious and is in a continuous deterioration due to the fall in funds,” says Yahya, who lists the cuts in the basic basket or the increase in the levels of malnutrition and anemia among women and children.
It foresees a few months of red alert “if the contributions of the donor countries are not increased.”
It was the year 1991 when Mestehia built his trunk shortly after the ceasefire that gave a truce to 15 years of war, since Spain withdrew in 1975 from its former colony and Morocco entered to control the territory that it now maintains under its dominion.
January 26, 1992 was the date set to hold a referendum of self-determination, eternally postponed.
The call was suspended due to the discrepancies between the parties – Polisario Front and Morocco – about the census and the lists of people eligible to vote. Despite the attempts of the UN and its established mission to organize and supervise the vote (MINURSO), there has been no agreement since then.
Morocco later definitively dislinked and in 2007 presented to the UN its proposal for autonomy within the Moroccan borders to resolve the conflict, a proposal praised by its main ally, France, and lately supported by the Spanish Government.
However, the Polisario categorically rejects it and maintains its commitment to the vote.
“We were very happy to hear that news (in 1991). The feeling of returning home and to our land, to reunite with our relatives who stayed in the Western Sahara,” Mestehia recalls.
They filled the trunks with food, clothes and the few possessions they had in humble jaimas, more designed to cope with the way back; but there was no return: “The trunks stayed here,” he says.
One more year, International Refugee Day has passed but the return continues to fly over the camps: “It is true that at another time it was much closer, but we continue to firmly believe that independence will come, as long as we continue to breathe and live, that dream will remain,” Mestehia sighs.
International
Seven bodies found with signs of torture in Sinaloa
Mexican authorities discovered seven lifeless bodies on Wednesday, showing clear signs of torture, in the rural area of Culiacán, Sinaloa, just one day after the same number of bodies was found in several municipalities in the western state of Mexico.
Six of these seven victims were found along the side of the highway that connects Culiacán to Mazatlán, near Laguna de Canachi, according to local media reports, which also noted that messages addressed to a criminal group were found near the bodies.
This brings the total number of violent deaths in the region to seven within just 24 hours. On Tuesday, authorities reported more victims found in the municipalities of Culiacán, Elota, and Mazatlán.
Among the victims identified was a local cattle rancher named Ramón Velázquez Ontiveros, as well as a police officer from Mazatlán, who was killed by a motorcyclist outside his home in San Marcos.
International
Málaga paralyzed by new storm as torrential rains hit Spain
Thousands of people were evacuated and trains were suspended as torrential rains once again struck Spain on Wednesday, following the devastating floods that killed at least 223 people two weeks ago, most of them in the Valencia region.
The national meteorological agency (Aemet) issued a maximum, red-level alert for the Andalusian province of Málaga in the south, and for Tarragona in the northeast, due to the new DANA (isolated depression at high levels), also known as a cold drop.
The city of Málaga appeared to be the hardest hit by the rains, with more than 3,000 people evacuated from 1,000 homes near rivers, flooded streets, and the suspension of urban transport and train services to Madrid.
“Today Málaga is paralyzed,” said Andalusia’s regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno, to reporters. “I know it is a problem for citizens not being able to take their children to school or go to work, but after what we saw in Valencia, we need to ‘prevent’ and minimize the impact in terms of loss of life,” he added.
The storm also led to the postponement of a match between Spain and Poland in the Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis competition, which was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Málaga.
International
Hezbollah launches explosive drone strike on Israel’s defense headquarters
The Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah claimed on Wednesday that it launched an attack with explosive drones against the Israeli army’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The Iran-backed organization reported in a statement that it had carried out “an aerial attack with a squadron of explosive drones” targeting the site that houses Israel’s main defense institutions.
Hezbollah later stated that it also fired a barrage of rockets at the Glilot military intelligence base in the suburbs of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military indicated that “sirens sounded in several areas of northern and central Israel following the launch of projectiles from Lebanon.”
It later clarified that “five projectiles were identified over the territory, and some were intercepted.”
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