Sun, sand and patience is their abundance to the Saharawi after 38 years surviving in the Algerian hamada thanks to international aid. In 1976 the independence movement, the Polisario Front, proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (RASD) just as Spain, the former colonial power, withdrew from the territory. This territory has been the subject of dispute between Mauritania and Morocco, the country which occupies almost all of it.
On 12 January 2007, Nicaragua joined the African Union and the 45 world nations which recognise the sovereignty of RASD. No European country recognises this sovereignty, nor the annexation carried out by Morocco.
260,000 Western Sahara inhabitants are currently living in no-man's land. There, the institutions have no power and they are not given any public assistance. Neighbouring Algeria, a firm defender of Western Saharan independence, is providing refuge to 160,000 Sahrawis in the desert surrounding the Algerian province of Tindouf. Isolated from the rest of the world, they depend on what the European NGO lorries take from the port of Oran to the south of the country.
A youth formed abroad begins to question the waiting time for holding the referendum. Many do not rule out return to arms.
