Song of Umm Dalaila, the Story of the Sahrawis (1993)

• 76%
• 1993
• Documentary
• Danielle Smith

At the Dakhla Refugee Camp, in Algeria, women and children await the outcome of a UN peace mission in their homeland, which they call the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara), a former Spanish colony, occupied by Morocco since 1975 with military help from the US and French governments. At Dakhla, women run schools and clinics, they farm, they raise children, they communicate with their men, who fight for the Palisario Front. Two-thirds of the Sahrawi are refugees, the other third are in Western Sahara behind a long wall Morocco has built near the Algerian border. Men and women talk about torture in Moroccan prisons and about freedom and self determination.