By Pablo Molina Asensi
The Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria have experienced several waves of COVID-19, which has affected projects in the camps even as much of the population remains unvaccinated.
Credit: ECHO
COVID-19 has severely affected the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf province, Algeria, leading to a total of 90 deaths out of a population of about 173,000 people, according to data published by the Public Health Ministry of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the partially recognized state that manages the Tindouf camps. The SADR also controls the small sliver of Western Sahara left unoccupied by Morocco after the latter invaded the former Spanish colony in 1975.
As of March 27, 2022, the Sahrawi camps had recorded a total of 2,040 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, but due to the inconsistent methods used by Sahrawi authorities to publish COVID data, the true number of cases is likely significantly higher.
While the current situation in the camps is under control, with SADR authorities reporting no COVID patients in hospitals as of the end of March and a 7-day average of zero cases, the camps are coming off the end of a severe fourth wave of COVID, which saw 169 recorded cases between the fourth wave being declared by SADR authorities on December 27 and March. The camps also experienced what the UNHCR described as a ”particularly virulent wave” in July of 2021.
The Polisario Front, the Sahrawi national liberation movement that governs the SADR, has attempted to combat the spread of COVID-19 through different means. Jira Boulahe, the SADR’s Health Minister, said that executive action by the Sahrawi president and ministers was taken to establish a National Committee for Prevention and a Scientific Committee.
Boulahe also says that “medical protocols of action were realized, centers for diagnosing, confinement and isolation were prepared. Epidemiological vigilance and control were activated.”
Additionally, Boulahe says that Sahrawi authorities carried out campaigns to inform the population and encourage vaccination and that facemasks and disinfectants were distributed in all public centers such as schools, government offices, and hospitals.
ACAPS, an independent non-profit, reported that, as of October 2021, only 2.5% of the camps’ population had received the first dose of the vaccine, and only 0.56% had received both doses. However, several foreign governments have been supplying the SADR with vaccines throughout the pandemic. In early April, Sahrawi authorities welcomed 458,000 doses of Cuba’s Soberana 2 vaccine, donated by the Caribbean country’s government. The Algerian government has also provided vaccines and has included Sahrawi refugees in its vaccination drive.
Boulahe said that while vaccination rates in the SADR are above the average for the African continent, they remain low.
She said that this can be blamed on a series of factors, such as “the negative propaganda about the vaccine on social media, the delay in receiving vaccines; the cultural level of the population; the delayed effect of the sensitization campaign, the speed with which the vaccines were created […] all of this contributes to a certain reticence to get this vaccine, despite the fact that this population is used to other vaccines, and there is a demand for them.”
Credit: ECHO
Ahmed Boutache, Algeria’s ambassador to the US, remarked on the support offered by Algeria to the Sahrawi refugee camps: “The pandemic has, of course, extended to the entire world, and multilateral cooperation was very highly needed, so we certainly did help our brother Sahrawi people in order to face this pandemic. We certainly provided whatever we could get, and we also of course provided help with vaccines.”
Boutache framed this help as part of a wider effort by Algeria to support other neighboring countries, adding that “now that Algeria has become a vaccine producer, we will certainly continue providing help.”
According to Boutache, the low vaccination rate in the camps can be attributed to both a lack of vaccines and a degree of vaccine hesitancy among the refugee population. He said that “even in Algeria, we had very serious difficulties convincing people to get vaccinated,” but added that perhaps problems may exist in the organization of vaccine distribution.
Boutache emphasized the low supply of vaccines that the African continent in general has experienced, saying “when you look at the figures, you find out, for instance, that only three percent of the vaccines that has been provided to the patients, to the world, only three percent goes to Africa. […] You can imagine, of course, that this entails consequences for each and every single country in Africa.”
This vaccine shortage has led to the continent constantly lagging behind wealthier regions in its vaccination rates, with only the island nations of Seychelles and Mauritius having vaccinated more than 70 percent of their population as of February, according to the UN.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also forced the cancellation of many activities organized by outside organizations in the camps. CEAS-Sahara, a Spanish umbrella organization that coordinates civil society groups in support of the Sahrawi people across the country, was forced to suspend the 2020 and 2021 editions of its flagship “Vacaciones en Paz” (Vacations in Peace) program, through which Sahrawi children from the camps stay with Spanish host families over the summer. However, Xavier Serra, President of CEAS-Sahara, said that the 2022 edition of the program is already in motion.
He said: “The first actions have already been taken. At the moment, the organized entities in each territory, which are the ones that in effect carry out the project, are in the phase of searching for families to determine the number of Sahrawi boys and girls who will come this summer to the Spanish state.”
Serra added that, throughout the pandemic, the activity of the group and its constituent organizations had been affected in three key ways.
“One was the possibility of holding meetings, for example, the normal activities and assemblies of an in-person kind […] because of that, it has been harder for us to meet live and in-person in the normal activity of the coordinator. The same thing happened concerning trips to the camps, and this affects both trips which may be carried out by families to for, example, political visits that we might be able to make, but also trips for projects, because there are many of our entities that organize projects in the Sahara, that due to these projects travel to the camps to carry out the project, to see its progress, to meet with Sahrawi entities, and this has been interrupted by the pandemic, and finally, because the priorities during this time have changed in the sense that a greater emphasis has been placed in different projects to try to confront the pandemic, and not only at a healthcare level, but also, for example, on the level of food, or at a humanitarian level, in relation to what had been done previously.”
Serra noted, however, that the situation has largely returned to one of relative normalcy, with in-person meetings being held, more trips being organized, and a return to the type of projects that CEAS-Sahara worked on before COVID.
Similarly, UNHCR efforts in the camps have also been affected by adverse circumstances in recent years, with a pulmonary epidemic in 2020 killing over 1,700 livestock in the camps. Some of the animals had only been provided shortly before the outbreak by the UN refugee agency, and the effects were particularly severe as COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in many refugees losing other jobs and sources of income.
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