6/11/2001 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York
NOTE: Photographs are available with this report.
By United Methodist News Service
Refugees who have survived for years in the great Sahara desert are facing an immediate hunger crisis, according to a United Methodist pastor who visited the camps in April.
The Rev. Ray Buchanan, founder and executive director of Stop Hunger Now, is trying to organize assistance for 180,000 refugees spread among four camps a hundred miles inside the western border of Algeria. Called the Saharawis, the refugees fled their homes in Western Sahara during a war with Morocco and Mauritania in 1975.
Since 1986, the U.N. World Food Programme has assisted the Algerian government in meeting basic nutritional needs for the refugees. But, Buchanan said, the Saharawis have been informed the food assistance will cease at the end of June. "They (World Food Programme) just don't have the money right now," he added.
According to the June 9 edition of the New York Times, the food program and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees have issued an appeal for donations of $1.2 million a month to continue feeding the refugees.
Responding to an appeal from the president of the Saharawi Red Crescent Society, Stop Hunger Now has become involved in the crisis. The nonprofit hunger relief organization is working with the U.S.-Western Sahara Foundation to get other groups involved in providing emergency food assistance. The foundation has been coordinating aid shipments to the refugees for the last few years.
A lack of adequate food and water is the No. 1 problem in the refugee camps, according to Buchanan, leading to both protein and vitamin deficiencies. Women and children make up more than 80 percent of the refugee population.
But he was impressed with the way the camps were run. "This is a Muslim democracy," he explained. "Women are fully franchised. Women play key roles in the leadership structure of the camps."
United Methodists have had a presence in the refugee camps before. Shirliann Fritz Johnson, a United Board of Global Ministries missionary serving in Algeria for more than 40 years, trained preschool teachers and teacher-trainers in the Saharawi camps from 1988 to 1998. Buchanan noted that the literacy rate among the refugees has risen from 3 to 90 percent during the years they have spent in the camps.
Western Sahara, the refugees' homeland, is under the control of Morocco, which has refused to give up the territory despite a ruling from the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The United Nations is working on settling the conflict, but no resolution is expected before next year.
More information on action regarding the Saharawi food crisis is available by calling Stop Hunger Now toll-free at (888) 501-8440 or writing to 2501 Clark Ave., Suite 301, Raleigh, NC 27607.
A Web site, www.wsahara@wsahara.net, has more information on the camps and the political conflict from the perspective of the Saharawi people.
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