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Travel to Mauritania, Morocco, and Moroccan-Controlled Western Sahara
The Polisario does not prevent camp residents from leaving the camps on trips of
limited duration or to settle elsewhere permanently. Sahrawis who seek to leave
generally find a way to do so.
Nevertheless, former camp residents now living in Moroccan-controlled Western
Sahara told us that when they left the camps they concealed their ultimate
destination, fearing that the Polisario would block their departure if it became known.
But no current or former camp residents provided us with specific, verifiable
information about any camp resident whom the Polisario had prevented from
resettling in the Moroccan-controlled area. Some speculated that there were types of
high-level persons whose departure the Polisario might seek to prevent, but they
could cite no example by name.
Thus, while at least some ex-camp residents feared that the Polisario would obstruct
their departure if it became known that they intended to settle in Moroccancontrolled
territory, those headed in that direction generally found a way to exit the
camps with little difficulty. Of the 17 persons we interviewed about how they had left
the camps for Morocco since 2006:
• ten left Algerian territory in a vehicle via the main road between the camps
and Mauritania, via the Hamra border checkpoint;
• two possessed Algerian passports and departed on regularly scheduled
flights;
• two came on a UN-organized family visit flight and remained on the
Moroccan-controlled side;
• one approached the Berm, where Moroccan soldiers ushered her across; she
had previously traveled from the camps to Mauritania, but the Moroccan
consulate there had refused to grant her entry to Morocco because she had
not brought the required documents;
• one took an off-road route across the border at night, after officials at Hamra
checkpoint turned him back because his national (SADR) ID card had expired;
and
Human Rights in Western Sahara and Tindouf 124