On 10 April 2009 Ibrahim Husein Labeid, 19, joined an international demonstration against the continued occupation of Western Sahara and had his leg blown off by one of the many millions of mines that are laid along the length of the 2,800-kilometre fortified wall that Morocco has erected around the occupied territories. I am taken to meet him by Daha Bulahi, a director at the Hospital for Victims of the War, who – in the humble way that characterizes the Saharawi people – says that his own injuries are his fault for ‘not having the proper means to clear the mines’. But on the way to visit Ibrahim we stop to visit Said Mohamed Fadel who, 26 years ago, stepped on an anti-vehicle mine and since that day has spent his life lying on his back in a sparse and undecorated hospital room being cared for by others. In some ways Fadel’s experience mirrors the situation of the Saharawi people as a whole – they too have spent the last 30 years in a state of limbo, being supported by aid and waiting peacefully but resolutely for the international community to honour a commitment made long ago to their self-determination.
The International Court of Justice ruled as long ago as 1975 that Western Sahara, until then a Spanish colony, should have the right to self-determination but Morocco invaded before the Spanish officially withdrew. A decade and a half of war ensued, with Saharawi movement Polisario conducting guerrilla campaigns against the occupying forces. The original UN Peace Plan between Morocco and the Saharawis was launched in 1991, and produced a ceasefire that has held to this day, but Morocco has stubbornly refused to accept any referendum with independence as an option. In recent years, moreover, the Western Sahara issue has slipped down – or completely off – the international agenda.
