Humanitarian hunger strike

No, not us. As privileged Norwegians, we can (with a few exceptions) travel wherever and meet whoever, whenever. Our basic human rights are very rarely threatened to the extent that a hunger strike is required. It is, however, a completely different case for the Saharawis. As we are writing this, a young Saharawi man, Mohammed Hallab, is on a humanitarian hunger strike which he begun on the 7th of March. You do the maths... The reason? He's being refused to travel to the occupied territories to meet his family. This is not only the case for him, but for 2400 other Saharawis.

Since 2004, the UN has been sending Saharawis in airplanes back and forth between the refugee camps and the occupied territories. The reason is that there are few other ways the refugees here in the camps can meet their relatives who live in the occupied areas. In order to participate in the program, one has to queue for some time – exactly how long seems to vary. People are then able to spend about ten days with their relatives who they may not have seen for years and years, before being sent back to the camps. People are also being sent the other way, from the occupied territories to the camps. Whenever there is a plane arriving, the relatives throw a huge party in the neighbourhood. The result is that you can hear it all over El'aiuun when this is happening. There are parties in every neighbourhood. Family is serious business around here!

The problem for Mohammed Hallab is that although he has been queuing for the program, he is now being refused to go despite not having seen his family since 2003. Hallab is a human rights activist and had to flee from the occupied territories after participating in peaceful demonstrations. Because of this, the Moroccan authorities have threatened to arrest him as soon as he enters the occupied territories through the program. As a consequence, the UN is refusing him to board the planes as they don't want to take responsibility for what might happen to him in the occupied territories.

The situation now is thus as follows; at the premises of the UN, under the open sky, Mohammed Hallab is lying on his bed. The UN refuses to talk to him, and takes no responsibility other than keeping him on the premises. At the demonstration to support him, we were also told that the UN claims to be in daily contact with his family in the occupied territories, searching for a solution to the problem. Hallab himself claims that this is not the case, and that his family has heard nothing from the UN.

That the Moroccans are creating problems is nothing new, but for the Saharawis – who have faith in the UN and their work in the camps (at least to a certain extent) – to have to fight the UN seems somewhat strange.

At the demonstration on Friday, there were Saharawis, as well as people from Spain and France in addition to us, showing their support. Mohammed Hallab is making an example which should not have to be made, and we now hope that the Moroccan authorities and the UN takes responsibility and unites him with his family immediately.

We are not able to log on to Facebook at the moment, but there should be some support-campaigns for those of you who want more information.