ALGIERS - The United Nations has released 1.5 million dollars in emergency humanitarian aid for refugees from Western Sahara who have fled to Algeria, a UN development office in Algiers said Sunday.
"The coordinator for UN emergency aid, John Holmes, has allocated 1.5 million dollars to help emergency assistance programmes for nearly 90,000 Western Sahara refugees who are most in need," the local UN development office said in a statement published by the Algerian state daily El-Moudjahid.
"A study done early this year showed that the rate of malnutrition among the refugees was about 18 percent," it said.
Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, was annexed by Morocco in 1975, leading to a bitter guerrilla war with the Polisario Front. It ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991.
Morocco has proposed considerable autonomy for the Western Sahara, but argues that its sovereignty is a non-negotiable historical fact. The Polisario demands a referendum on self-determination, with independence as one of the options.
Algeria has backed the Polisario and the north African country became the destination for some 160,000 refugees from Western Sahara, who live off international aid.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has appealed for some six million dollars to help the Western Sahara refugees but so far only 2.66 million dollars has been received, the UN statement said.
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