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Sahrawi Red Crescent

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Along the days of Thursday 9 and on Friday 10 and in the first hours of Saturday February 11 the 2006, in the Sahrawi refugee camps in the region of Tindouf have registered torrential rains and overflow of torrents that have
caused enormous destructions of goods and provoked light wounds to some refugees.

We have suffered the sinking of many of the sand bricks constructions where the refugees live that has forced to thousands of families of the different camps to evacuate and to escape from their housings for the nights of Thursday and on Friday to pass on the neighboring mounds to the fields, because of the fear of the floods that have taken many of their goods and the scarce foods that were in their power.

The first estimates that the teams of the Red Crescent have carried out in situ reveal that more than 12.000 families are homeless; it is also necessary to keep in mind the nonexistence of a stock of tents (the stocks for the program of the 2005 have not still been received to day of today), fact that can affect more the situation.

As a consequence of the storm, the stagnated waters also represent a high risk of epidemics between the refugees and this in a moment in which the stocks of medications are scarce, overalls the antibiotics. It will be difficult to take in charge the urgent necessities that are growing over and over.

It is necessary to point out that these torrential rains have affected not only the housings, also other establishments are destroyed, in particular the clinics, the hospitals, the nurseries and the schools. Schools had to be interrupted to prevent all the risks that may threaten the children, as consequence of the sinkings of whole walls and of the roofs of the school establishments.

In these difficult circumstances the Sahrawi Red Crescent makes an urgent call to all the governments, international organizations, non government organizations, civil societies and from all over the world so that they provide urgent help in tents, blankets, medications and basic nutritional products inside the smallest possible term to respond and to take charge the necessities of thousands of families that remain homeless and to prevent the degradation of the sanitary situation of the Sahrawi refugees and to avoid a true famine if the humanitarian help of urgency don't arrive immediately. Overalls the stocks of security would feed basic received in January of the 2006 they will begin to be drained in next month of March.

In I finish place the Saharawi Red Crescent makes this urgent call to go in help of thousands of Sahrawi women, children and old people in Algerian territory, focuses the attention about the urgent necessity of an intervention of the donors for the rehabilitation of schools and hospitals without the smallest delay to be able to assure the continuity of the school course and to face a minimum of sanitary necessities.

In this painful circumstance he Sahrawi Red Crescent requests to the group of agencies of the United Nations, the High Commissioner for Refugees in particular, to the World Food Program to assume entirely their responsibilities and their mission toward the refugees in this desperate situation. The Red Crescent communicates its astonishment for its lack of readiness and its immobility in getting the attention of the international community on this situation.

The Sahrawi refugee camps

February 11 2006