Spanish Sahara support activists return to base amid threats
Spanish Sahara support activists return to base amid threats
A GROUP of Spanish activists who attempted to enter El Aaiún in the disputed Sahara region of North Africa have been forced to turn back.
Eight members of the Saharan People Support Group had sailed in from the Canary Islands in order to join the protest staged by the nationless desert people in a camp 18 kilometres east of the city.
Violence, threats, famine and fears of capture and murder are daily facts of life to those living in the Western Sahara region locked between Morocco and Algeria.
But the eight Spanish activists decided not to get off the boat when they were confronted with death-threats from huge crowds of Moroccans and told by police that they could not guarantee their safety.
Another six Spanish tourists, who had joined the party in order to lend support to the protest, were denied entry to the Western Sahara capital because they could not justify their presence.
The group has temporarily returned to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to regroup.
Their trip to El Aaiún would have involved visiting the mother of 14-year-old Nayem Elgarhi who was shot dead by Moroccan police last Sunday.
Some of these activists had already taken part in a protest in August, which led to six of them reportedly being beaten up by plain-clothes Moroccan police.
