Rabat – A young sahraoui man was found dead yesterday 200 km from Rabouni camp, near Tindouf in Algeria. He was trying to leave Roubani camp but died of thirst after his car broke down in the desert.
According to Moroccan new outlet Le360, Ahmed Mahmoud Dih and four friends had attempted to drive out of Rabouni camp, avoiding the roadblocks set up by the Polisario to restrict exit from the camp.
After their car broke down, they walked separate ways through the desert to find help. Dih’s friends were found after a number of days of walk, but Dih died of thirst.
The Algerian government has imposed restrictions on any movements out of the Tindouf camps. The restrictions are enforced by Polisario, who has set up roadblocks outside the camps.
The restrictions have been tightened since the Hirak protests in Algiers at the start of the year.
Read Also: Man Dies Due to Tightened Restrictions on Movement in Tindouf Camps
For the Sahrawis living in the the camps, the restrictions have made life difficult.
An investigative film produced by Moroccan television channel Medi1TV and aired in early April shed light into the plight of Sahrawis living in the Tindouf camps.
A Tindouf refugee who spoke to the a Spanish journalist who produced the investigative film asserted that humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, never reached them. Instead, the young refugee said, the aid is embezzled by Polisario members and sold in the market in nearby Rabouni.
Sahrawis have carried out several protests in the last month against what they describe as Polisario’s “forced detention” and a “violation of the right of movement.”
On April 23, sixty Sahrawis living in Tindouf’s Lahmada camp conducted a sit-in outside the Sahrawi Ministry of the Interior in Rabouni, to complain about the tightened restrictions.
On April 27, Polisario used tanks to disperse thirty Sahrawi youths who were blocking the main road into Rabouni camp in protest against the restrictions of movement out of the camp.
