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Join on Telegram Rabat – The UN is planning to cut by 50% food rations directed to Sahrawis living in the Polisario-run camps in Tindouf, the westernmost province in Algeria.
Citing the UN World Food Program, the Spanish news outlet EFE reported that the decision to cut food rations directed to Sahrawis is due to “higher grain prices and freight rates.”
EFE’s report quoted a spokesperson for the UN World Food Program as saying that acute hunger is projected to increase by 47 million people if the conflict in Ukraine does not end.
“This represents an increase of 17 percent, being the most pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa,” the spokesperson said, adding that the cutting of food rations will also impact countries in the Sahel region.
The news is set to compound the Tindouf camps’ long-running malnutrition crisis, with recent reports by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, having repeatedly outlined the prevalence of acute hunger in the Polisario-run camps.
In his October 2021 report, Guterres expressed concerns about hunger and malnutrition in Tindouf.
Over the years, UN-affiliated organizations have struggled to meet the needs of refugees and improve food security and nutrition in the Tindouf camps.
Read also: Moroccan MPs Shed Light on Human Rights Violations in Tindouf Camps
The UNHCR, UNICEF, and WFP received only 58% of their combined resource needs for their regular programs in 2020.
Several reports have linked malnutrition in the region to the embezzlement of humanitarian aid — including food packages and funds — meant for distressed refugees by the Polisario leadership.
In a revealing report in October 2021, the Tindouf-based Autonomy Support Forum (FORSATIN) considered Polisario’s mismanagement and misappropriation of humanitarian aid as the main factor behind the severe health crisis in the camps.
The “smuggling” of medical equipment and food supplies meant for refugees has long caused acute malnutrition and other health concerns in the Polisario-controlled, FORSATIN documented.
“As soon as they [aid packages] arrive and are pictured, these devices evaporate as if they never existed,” noted the report, adding that the shortage of medicines has been one of the camps’ festering issues despite yearly supplies from UN agencies and other relief NGOs.
Even pro-Polisario websites like Futuro Sahara have on occasion reported on the chronic embezzlement of humanitarian aid meant for Sahrawi refugees.
In 2018, Futuro Sahara revealed that food packs and other relief items sent to the Polisario-run camps mostly end up in Algerian grocery stores.
In an even more damning report in 2015, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) exposed a scandal about the selling and the embezzlement of international aid intended for Sahrawis in the Tindouf camps.
Covering the 2003-2007 period, the report documented how, amid widespread cases of malnutrition, poor health, and a large shortage of foodstuffs in the Tindouf camps, senior Polisario officials chose instead to sell EU relief products in Mauritanian and Sub-Saharan markets.
