Europe must give emergency aid to 158,000 refugees from Western Sahara now living in camps in Algeria or face a major humanitarian crisis, the European Parliament said today.
Morocco and Mauritania invaded Western Sahara, which is rich in phosphates, shortly after colonial power Spain pulled out in 1975, setting off an exodus of the Sahrawi indigenous people to neighbouring Algeria.
The refugees live in camps near Tindouf, some 2,000 km south of Algiers. The United Nations provides aid and monitors the desert area.
The World Food Programme says food will run out in May due to a shortage of donations.
"The parliament calls on the European Commission to grant immediate emergency aid to enable the difficult situation of the Sahrawi population, currently living as refugees, to be addressed," said a resolution adopted by the assembly today.
A group of MEPs visited the refugee camps last month.
"I have never seen anything like the Sahrawi camps," Portuguese MEP Miguel Portas told the assembly. "There's no electricity ... no real water supply."
The parliament wants the European Commission to give emergency aid to the Sahrawi people and bring funding back up to 2002 levels.
Over the period 1993 to 2003, the EU's humanitarian aid office ECHO spent more than €100 million on the Sahrawi refugees, but since then aid has tailed off due to donor fatigue.
The refugees are stuck in Algeria as United Nations attempts to broker a peace deal with Morocco for their return to Western Sahara have stalled.