Rabat – Moroccan director Hassan El Bouharrouti’s latest documentary, which deals with terrorist movements in the Sahel-Saharan region, was screened Tuesday in Oslo, at a seminar organized by the Norwegian section of the Coordination of Moroccans in Scandinavia and Northern Europe entitled “Sahel and Sahara: challenges for peace and security.”
The 40-minute documentary explores how the region has seen the development of a multinational terrorist network, fueled by crime, kidnapping, drugs and human trafficking and overtime becoming a zone dominated by outlaws.
The film traces the rise of terrorist movements in the region since the Algerian civil war in 1990, passing by the fall of the regime of Gaddafi, which marked the birth of a lethal weapons trafficking ring and the merging of various terrorist groups.
It also presents the testimonies of hostages abducted by Polisario elements, while also covering the illegal reselling of humanitarian aid by the separatist movement with the complicity of the Algerian authorities, as evidenced by reports of the World Food Program (WFP) and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
The documentary uncovers the Polisario’s involvement in terrorist acts and kidnappings of foreigners, as well as the penetration of terrorist ideology among young people in the Tindouf camps, driven by disarray and lack of economic prospects.
In a statement to the MAP, El Bouharrouti said that the film deals with the problem of terrorism, a phenomenon without religion or nationality, which is of great importance to Europe, including Scandinavian countries.
According to him, the film is an attempt to unmask the true face of the Polisario and its involvement in human trafficking, as well as its continuous misappropriation of humanitarian aid for the refugee populations sequestered in the camps of Tindouf, exploiting the security situation in the region.
The film, filmed over the course of 18 months, was screened for the first time at the European Parliament’s headquarters back in April 26 and then in Stockholm. It is the fourth film by the Moroccan director, after “La Marche Verte: The Return of the Branches at the Root,” “The Identity of a Front” and “Sahara: Sources and Resources.”
