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UN Chief’s visit: Sahrawi refugees looking forward to "new prospects"

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Smara (refugee camps), 26 February 2016 (SPS) - The Sahrawi refugees stressed on Thursday that "all their hopes and those of the Sahrawi people are placed in the visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon" to the refugee camps, calling the international community to open "new prospects" about the question of Western Sahara occupied by Morocco.

 

"We hope to see new prospects about our national question as we hope to gain our independence," said Aziz, a young Saharawi member of the Saharawi delegation, came to Smara to represent the people of the occupied territories at the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the proclamation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

 

He called on the international community to "make further pressure on Morocco to comply with the international law to hold a self-determination referendum of the Sahrawi people."

 

"We came to transmit the message of the populations of Al Ayun, Smara, Dakhla, Boujdour," he added, underlining that "our hope and that of Sahrawi people is placed in the visit of UN Chief Ban Ki-moon" to the region.

 

"We expect a lot from his visit and we hope he will manage to find a final solution that may put an end to 40 year suffering" of Western Sahara people, he added.

 

Boukhari, 40, another Sahrawi refugee, said that those living in the Sahrawi refugee camps are "expecting positive impact from the forthcoming visit of the UN Secretary General."

 

"We hope that this visit will lead us towards the organization of the self-determination referendum for the Saharawi people", he said.

 

Ahmed, 20, who holds a grocery shop in the district called ‘Hai Soun’ in the Smara refugee camp, said that he was born in the camp as his family arrived there in 1976.

 

"He, and the rest of the camp residents, ask Ban Ki-moon to do everything to resolve" the conflict of Western Sahara.

 

"We, as young people who were born in those camps demand immediate self-determination for Western Sahara," Ahmed added.

 

"We have been feeling frustrated for four decades."

 

Registered since 1966 on the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories and therefore eligible for the application of resolution 1514 of the UN General Assembly, Western Sahara is the last colony in Africa, occupied since 1975 by Morocco. (SPS)

 

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