MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd November, 2020) An end to an almost-three-decade ceasefire in Western Sahara threatens to disrupt life-saving aid deliveries to Sahrawi refugees, the Oxfam charity said Monday.
Fighting erupted in mid-November after Morocco sent troops south to reopen a highway at the border crossing with Mauritania, angering the pro-independence Polisario Front, which controls the area. Polisario officially renounced the ceasefire.
"Renewed fighting in Western Sahara... threatens regional stability and renews fears for the security and future of Sahrawi refugees - most of whom have been displaced since 1975," Oxfam said in a press release.
Heightened tensions may restrict humanitarian access to the camps housing over 173,000 Sahrawis. Oxfam estimated that only 12 percent of Sahrawi households were food secure, while some 133,000 people depended on the monthly distributions of aid as their main food source.
