Disaster in Sahrawi Refugee Camps near Tindouf

(I started this post just before my accident. The accident caused me to suspend blogging and thus the item was never finished nor posted. News and photos which are needed for properly ending this post have long gone from the 'Net, so I am posting it just as I left it, except for the added postscript.)

Devastating torrential rainstorms swept across the Algerian Sahara earlier this month, and inundated three of the camps in which Sahrawi refugees live. The housing in the camps are mainly of adobe (dried mud brick) construction or consist of large tents - neither of which could stand up to such rainfalls. Adobe bricks just 'melt' or dissolve and return to mud, and tents can't withstand the strong winds which accompany such desert Maelstrom. According to Reuters, there are some 90,000 Sahrawi living in 5 camps near Tindouf, and of these, 50,000 - in the three camps hit by the storms - lost their shelter!

UNSCREW said they found a huge amount of structural damage, with 50 percent of houses completely destroyed and the remainder in an unstable condition.

A relief effort was started immediately. To describe the size of the disaster, relief workers estimated that they need to airlift immediately: 12,000 tents and plastic sheeting for 12,000 families, 510 plastic rolls, 7000 kitchen sets, 60,000 blankets, 40,000 mattresses and 20,000 jerry cans.

(Postscript: They needed money then and they still need it to restore conditions to what they were before the deluge. Please find a way to contribute and please be generous.)