The Last Colony


  • Photographer
    Andrew McConnell
  • Prize
    3rd Place / Special/Night Photography
  • Company/Studios
    Panos Pictures
  • Date of Photograph
    May - Nov 2009

The territory of Western Sahara is Africa's last open file at the United Nations Decolonisation Committee. Moroccan invaded the territory in 1975 and forced colonial power Spain to withdraw without holding a UN sanctioned referendum on the future of the state. Spain divided the land between Morocco and Mauritania, ignoring the pleas of the indigenous Saharawi people and a ruling by the International Court of Justice which found neither country had any sovereignty over the territory. A war ensued between Morocco and the Saharawi rebel group, Frente Polisario. Thousands of Saharawis fled and set up refugee camps across the border in neighbouring Algeria where they remain to this day, their numbers having grown to some 170,000. A ceasefire was signed in 1991 with the agreement that a referendum on self-determination would be held the following year. Nineteen years later that referendum has yet to take place, while for the Saharawi people a sense of injustice, hopelessness, and anger grows ever stronger.

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