Reporting from Western Sahara

REpORTINg FROM WESTERN SAhARA the forgotten conflict’s global implications

ThE INTErNaTIoNal WoMEN’s MEdIa FouNdaTIoN

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MEDIA FOUNDATION

REpORTINg FROM WESTERN SAhARA the forgotten conflict’s global implications

The InTernaTIonal Women’s medIa FoundaTIon • reporTIng From WesTern sahara | 1

A young Sahrawi woman walks

through the dunes outside the city of

Laayoune, Western Sahara.

Photo Credit: Kristen McTighe

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Often described as “Africa’s last colony”, Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara has been the source of a bitter regional dispute over control of the resource-rich land for nearly 40 years. Although it is the longest-running conflict on the continent, it receives almost no attention from the international community.

While Western Sahara is largely inaccessible to the foreign media, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), which provides opportunities for women journalists to report on issues of global importance, was able to secure unrivaled access to the territory for twelve reporters representing international news outlets. This provided all parties involved in the conflict the rare opportunity to share their stories with a global audience.

The IWMF led two reporting trips to Western Sahara and Morocco with support from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. The first trip took place in December 2012. The second trip was in May 2013, immediately after United Nations hearings on adding a human rights monitoring mandate to Western Sahara’s UN Mission (MINURSO). In this case, the IWMF’s presence in the territory was met with a large pro-independence protest.

In spite of heavy digital and physical surveillance, the journalists were able to cover complex stories and bring to light new narratives from the forgotten conflict. As a result of these trips, mainstream media coverage of myriad issues, including the extraction of Western Sahara’s natural resources and implications for the Sahrawi people, has spiked.

This publication highlights the experiences of the journalists who traveled to Western Sahara with the IWMF, along with their stories and images.

About Western SaharaSituated in North Africa between the Atlantic Ocean, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony and home to the indigenous Sahrawi people. Classified by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory, Western Sahara has been ruled by Morocco since 1975.

Across the border in Algeria,nearly 120,000* Sahrawi refugees, governed by the Polisario Front, live in extreme poverty, imagining a day when they will return to their homeland. A referendum process, in which the Sahrawi people would choose independence or integration with Morocco, was initiated by the UN in 1991, but a vote has never taken place.

The territory is one of the few places in the world rich in high-quality phosphate, a critical resource for global food security. Some legal experts argue that it is being mined against the wishes of the Sahrawi people and in violation of international law. Both sides remain locked in a stalemate over a land abundant in phosphate and other resources including fish. Though Western Sahara’s future is undecided, Morocco has made huge investments in its infrastructure while profiting from its phosphate resources and fisheries.

*Source: UNHCR

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Jenn Abelson is an investigative reporter for The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team. She was recognized as a finalist for the 2012 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. Abelson served as a Spring 2010 Jefferson Fellow with the East-West Center and traveled to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Jakarta to examine the new realities in Asia in light of the economic crisis and environmental challenges.

Trip Reflections: “I was thrilled to participate in the IWMF’s reporting trip to Western sahara because it provided an exciting opportunity to explore africa’s last colony with talented female journalists from around the world. during our jam-packed days, we met with dozens of officials, activists, and historians with a broad range of views on why this resource-rich territory has been unable to make headway after a 40-year struggle for independence.“

Eliza Barclay is a reporter and producer for NPR, covering food and health on the web and occasionally the air. From 2004 to 2007 she was based in Mexico City as a freelance correspondent. She has also reported from East Africa and East Asia, and was a fellow with the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins SAIS in 2007. Barclay has a B.S. from the University of California-Berkeley and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University in Science Writing.

Trip Reflections: “Traveling to Western sahara with IWMF was an incredibly unique opportunity to learn about a fascinating forgotten conflict and report on it in the face of many constraints. The experience was invaluable, and I will certainly draw from it in future foreign reporting assignments.”

IWMF Western Sahara Reporting Fellows

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have unfolded much like this recent one. Members of the indigenous Sahrawi ethnic group raised their fists in the air and honked car horns to show their displeasure with Moroccan rule; some brandished Polisario flags, which are banned by the government 800 miles away in Rabat. The evening ended with some rock-throwing and accusations of injury by both sides. No shots were fired.

In part because their campaign has been a civil one, it has unfolded almost totally outside the world’s sphere of attention. Elsewhere on the continent, civil war has split Sudan into two countries; self-immolation and riots have brought regime change across North Africa. Here, meanwhile, even though the UN, the United States, and most other powerful nations have never recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the area, the independence movement has been unable to make headway.

Read the full story at iwmf.org/westernsahara.

Western Sahara: Why Africa’s last colony can’t break free By Jenn AbelsonJune 16, 2013

The Boston GlobeCopyright © 2013 Globe Newspaper Company, Inc., used with permission

For anyone who isn’t a geography buff, it’s likely that the Polisario Front, and perhaps even Western Sahara, are unfamiliar names. A former Spanish colony now annexed and ruled by neighboring Morocco, this territory has been waiting four decades for a shot at independence it was promised but never received. After a half-century of global decolonization that has produced about 80 new nations throughout the world, Western Sahara is now by far the largest piece of land remaining on the United Nations’ list of “non-self-governing territories,” places it considers to have an unfulfilled right to decide their own futures.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the push for independence in Western Sahara, a movement that for the last two decades has been largely peaceful. The Polisario Front—the formerly armed nationalist group that officially represents Western Saharans in their negotiations—signed a cease-fire with Morocco in 1991, and since that time protests


Edythe McNamee is a digital content producer for CNN.com based in Atlanta, GA. She produces, shoots and edits original videos and photos for the website. Before joining CNN, she was based in the United Arab Emirates for three years, where she worked as a multimedia producer for The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi. McNamee graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007, where she majored in photojournalism and international relations.

Trip Reflections: “What I found most rewarding was to work with a group of other young female journalists. To see how reporters who work in mediums other than my own would go about covering the same story. often when you’re reporting abroad, much of your time is spent arranging interviews, securing translators, and other logistical elements. What was different, and really useful, about the reporting fellowship trip, was that all of those things were taken care of. so it meant that at the end of the day, we all had more time to focus on the story. and when you have a limited number of days to work on the ground, you want to be able to dedicate as much time as possible to the story.”

Whitney Shefte, an award-winning video journalist at The Washington Post, pitches, researches, shoots, reports, edits and produces multimedia stories for the Post’s digital and print platforms. Shefte serves as an officer for the White House News Photographers Association and is Mentorship Chair for Women Photojournalists of Washington. A three-time Emmy Award nominee, Shefte received a Peabody Award in 2011.

She and a team of Post journalists were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2011.

Trip Reflections: “Before this trip, I had never been to africa, I had barely heard of Western sahara, and I didn’t know a word of arabic. so when I arrived in laayoune, faced with the imperfect art of translation, forced to be ever-watched by government minders, and met by an endless stream of people who all wanted to share their stories, I quickly realized how challenging this experience would be. But important stories are born from challenges, and we all worked hard to understand the history, culture and problems facing Western sahara… People personally thanked me for coming to bear witness to the situation there. It felt like what we were doing was important. and ultimately, that’s why I am a journalist: I care about bearing witness and telling important stories.”

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Edythe McNamee, a digital content

producer for CNN.com, shoots

footage at the phosphate port in

Laayoune. In the distance a ship

waits for its turn to load the phosphate,

which travels from the Bou Craa mine to the port on the

world’s longest conveyor belt.

Photo Credit:

Kristen McTighe


in Morocco and Western Sahara. But exploiting Western Sahara’s supply of this critical resource is controversial.

Once a Spanish colony, Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco since 1976, and roiled by regional power politics and an independence movement that waged a guerrilla war until a cease-fire in 1991. With Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara unrecognized by the UN, many in the international community argue that Morocco is violating international law by exploiting the territory’s resources – and that global companies should not be party to that.

Yet the phosphate mining by a Moroccan company goes on, and foreign companies like PotashCorp continue to buy. In 2008, prices for phosphate rock spiked, raising the incentive to ignore international law and continue exploiting Western Sahara’s phosphate. Prices have since dropped, but have still increased by more than 300 percent since 2007. At current prices, the load in the hold of the Double Rejoice would be worth nearly $14 million.


At the end of a pier stretching more than a mile-and-a-half into the Atlantic Ocean from Laayoune, a 75,000-ton tanker vessel rocks slowly in the ocean swells, creaking and groaning as it takes on a new load.

A long spout pours phosphate from a conveyor belt into the ship’s hold, and some of the powdery substance spills into the air like dust, coating the deck of the vessel and stinging as it blows in the strong wind. By the next day, this tanker, called the Double Rejoice, will be on its way across the Atlantic to Baton Rouge, La., where its load of phosphate will be delivered to PCS Nitrogen Fertilizer, the American subsidiary of PotashCorp, the biggest fertilizer company in the world.

Farther out to sea, two more vessels wait for their turn to load.

Phosphate is a key ingredient in the fertilizer that helps makes it possible to feed the world’s growing population. The world’s supply of phosphate is concentrated in just a handful of countries, with more than three-fourths of that

In remote Western Sahara, prized phosphate drives controversial investments By Kristen Chick January 24, 2013

The Christian Science MonitorReprinted with permission from the January 24, 2013 issue of The Christian Science Monitor. © 2013 The Christian Science Monitor (www.CSMonitor.com).


Armina Ligaya is a Toronto-based reporter for The National Post. Before taking on the business beat for the Canadian national daily newspaper, she was an online reporter and associate producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Prior to this, she was based in the United Arab Emirates for more than three years, as a business reporter and online editor for The National.

Trip Reflections: “What I found most rewarding about this trip was the access to so many people with different perspectives on the situation in Western sahara. From activists to experts to government officials and everyday citizens — the time and ability to delve in so deeply are luxuries rarely afforded in journalism’s daily grind.”

Kristen Chick is the Cairo correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, where she has covered Egypt and the surrounding region for the past three years. She covered the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya, and the war in Syria. Chick previously lived in Egypt as a Fulbright scholar, and has also worked as a reporter in Washington, D.C.

Trip Reflections: “The IWMF fellowship in Western sahara was a fantastic opportunity to report in a place that can be difficult for journalists to access. We were able to interview officials and leaders who are normally hard to reach, and visit sites normally off-limits to journalists. This allowed us to shed light on a subject that is often overlooked.”


Larisa Epatko is a reporter-producer for foreign affairs at the Arlington, Va.-based PBS NewsHour. At the NewsHour, she helps produce broadcast segments and writes articles, crafts audio slideshows and edits video for the website. She also manages the World page (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/), which showcases the NewsHour’s in-depth analysis of international news, and she tweets for the beat (@NewsHourWorld). To get on-the-

ground perspectives, Epatko has reported from places such as Iraq, South Korea, Pakistan and Sudan. She also works regularly with budding writers on producing stories for the NewsHour’s website.

Sarah A. Topol has been based in the Middle East since 2008. Her writing has been published in the The Atlantic, Businessweek, Esquire, Foreign Policy, GQ, Harper’s, Newsweek, The New Republic, Popular Science, Slate, and Vice, among others. Topol lived in Cairo for four and a half years, where she blogged for The New York Times, before moving to Istanbul in 2013. Topol reported on the Arab uprisings from Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and the Syrian border with Turkey. She won

the 2012 Kurt Schork Award for International Journalism for her coverage of the civil war in Libya.

Trip Reflections: “The trip was a great opportunity to be able to report from and write about a territory even those of us based in the region would have been unlikely to visit independently. The chance to meet, work with and get to know strong, intelligent and successful female journalists was priceless in an industry where sexism is constantly discussed but rarely acted upon in a positive manner.”


chanting for independence. although the numbers sound small, the protests were significant: The territory’s population is only 500,000. The protestors were not deterred by the presence of heavy Moroccan security. These demonstrations, coupled with the flap over the uN mandate, “move the chess pieces forward in ways we haven’t seen for years,” says William lawrence, the north africa analyst for the International Crisis group, an ngo that tracks conflict around the world.

The uN does not recognize Morocco’s claim that Western sahara historically belongs to the Kingdom, and pressure on the Moroccans is building. International law dictates resource extraction by an occupying country can be done only with the consent of and for the benefit of the local population.


Western sahara, a Colorado-size piece of land directly below Morocco, has been relatively quiet since the united Nations brokered a cease-fire in 1991 between Morocco, which occupied the land when spain withdrew from its former colony, and the indigenous sahrawis, who wanted independence. after the cease-fire, a united Nations peacekeeping mission arrived to set up a referendum for independence. That vote never happened. For the most part, Western sahara fell off the radar.

The uN force is still there, charged with preparing a referendum. Earlier this year the u.s. attempted to add human rights monitoring to the uN’s mandate, then dropped its efforts in april when Morocco canceled joint military exercises with the u.s. That set off a wave of protests. In early May more than a thousand protesters took to the streets in laayoune, Western sahara’s capital,

Amid Moroccan Investment in Western Sahara, Tensions SimmerBy Sarah TopolMay 30, 2013

Bloomberg BusinessweekCopyright © 2013, used with permission

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A drag liner is used to extract phosphate from the mine at Bou Craa. Phosboucraa is the company that controls the mine in Western Sahara and is a subsidiary of the Office Chérifien des Phosphates, the national Moroccan phosphate company which controls the trade of phosphate in the territory. Photo Credit: Edythe McNamee


Kristen McTighe is a Cairo-based independent journalist covering the Middle East and North Africa. Her work is published in the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. She has reported from across Europe, in Morocco during Arab Spring democracy protests, in Tunisia during the first free elections emerging from the Arab Spring uprisings, and in Egypt following the fall of Hosni Mubarak. Prior to becoming an independent journalist, she worked in the

newsroom and photo department of the International Herald Tribune in Paris and in press freedom and development at the World Association of Newspapers.

Trip Reflections: “The trip gave me an immense background on Western sahara that I don’t know where I would have gotten anywhere else and by far the most valuable thing I took away from the trip was how to actually manage and work in the territory - how to deal with security issues, cultural sensitivities, and all the logistics that go into making this kind of trip... I am planning to return hopefully this fall … reporting and delving deeper into the same socioeconomic issues in addition to other issues that I discovered over the course of the trip. I don’t think this would have ever been possible — to get this foundation for reporting on Western sahara — had I not had the training and experience that I had during the IWMF trip.”

Celeste Hicks is a freelance journalist specializing on Africa and the Sahel. She spent four years living and working in Mali, Chad and Somalia and ten years working for the BBC World Service. She is now based in London and makes frequent trips to Sahelian countries, reporting for a number of media outlets including BBC, the Guardian, Africa Report, Slate magazine and Jane’s

Intelligence Review. Hicks also works as a trainer and mentor to young African journalists.

Trip Reflections: “Thanks for this brilliant opportunity which really demonstrated the power of a group of women working constructively together. It’s a story I know I would not have been able to cover alone, and I learnt so much from the different approaches of the different team members. Truly an experience never to forget!”


During the IWMF’s second trip to Western Sahara in May, large pro-independence protests swept the streets of Laayoune. Human rights activist Aminatou Haidar said they were the largest protests she had ever seen in the heart of the city. Here a Sahrawi woman shows an American flag sewn into her melhefa. A few days prior to the protest, the United States backed a human rights monitoring mandate for MINURSO. It did not pass the UN Security Council. Freedom House lists Western Sahara as one of the 17 least free places in its “Freedom in the World 2013” report. Photo Credit: IWMF


Portia Walker is a broadcast journalist for BBC World News. She has reported from across the Middle East and North Africa for outlets including The Economist, The Washington Post, The Independent and Foreign Policy. From 2007 - 2010 she was a producer for “Frost Over the Word” at Al Jazeera English where she made television programs from Afghanistan, India, the Middle East and the U.S. She studied Arabic language in Fez, Morocco and English literature at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Trip Reflections: “The fellowship provided a rare opportunity to visit this under-reported part of the world and meet representatives from different sides of the conflict.”

Loveday Morris is a Beirut-based journalist specializing in the Middle East and North Africa. She currently covers the civil war in Syria and its impact in Lebanon for The Independent newspaper, and has also been published in titles including The Washington Post and Foreign Policy. Starting her career at Bloomberg News in London, she moved to The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi where she worked for two and a half years. Morris has reported human rights issues and

politics in the Gulf as well as assignments ranging from coverage of the 2010 elections in Iraq to political fallout in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Trip Reflections: “The trip to the Western sahara with the IWMF provided an invaluable opportunity to cover a story that receives scant attention in the international press.”


The sun sets over the city of Laayoune, Western Sahara. In the background, evidence of Morocco’s investment in the territory is visible. The conflict over resource-rich Western Sahara has simmered for over 40 years without resolution and has seen little media attention until now. For more information on the IWMF’s programs visit iwmf.org.

Photo Credit: armina ligaya

About the IWMF Founded in 1990 by a group of prominent u.s. women journalists, the International Women’s Media Foundation is a Washington-based organization that is dedicated to strengthening the role of women journalists worldwide. The IWMF believes the news media world-wide are not truly free and representative without the equal voice of women. The IWMF celebrates the courage of women journalists who overcome threats and oppression to speak out on global issues. The IWMF’s programs empower women journalists with the training, support and network to become leaders in the news industry.

About the Howard G. Buffett Foundation The howard g. Buffett Foundation is a private family foundation that has worked for nearly fifteen years to improve the standard of living and quality of life for the world’s most impoverished and marginalized populations. The Foundation invests its resources in areas where risks discourage other funding support but where the Foundation sees an opportunity to bring about sustained, transformational change. although its funding primarily supports efforts to achieve global food security, including through sustainable management of water resources needed for agriculture, the Foundation is also deeply engaged in catalyzing development in conflict and immediate post-conflict regions of africa and Central america. The IWMF is proud to be a part of the Foundation’s efforts to give voice to the voiceless who have been displaced or marginalized due to the ongoing dispute over Western sahara.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MEDIA FOUNDATION

Front Cover: Journalists pause in the desert near the Moroccan-owned phosphate mine in Bou Craa, Western Sahara to take photos of the surrounding landscape. Photo Credit: Edythe McNamee

1625 K Street NWSuite 1275Washington, D.C. 20006

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Reporting from Western Sahara