International

The trunks of the Saharawi return that stayed in the Tinduf camps

Like all Saharawi refugees, Mestehia Jatri used the zinc sheets that make the roof in the houses of the camps of Tinduf, Algeria, to build her return trunk that would fill with bedens to return in 1992 to her native Western Sahara.

They never returned, but he keeps the ark in the yard of that frustrated longing.

“When they told us (that the referendum was agreed and close to being held) we were very happy and all the families began to assemble the trunks of the return. In each jaima you saw one,” he tells EFE Mestehia in front of his own that contained “that happiness of returning home.”

The trunks that the families kept represented for years in the camps the expected return of the refugee and the promises of independence but, while hope moved away, the needs for a life in exile increased. Most had to recycle the zinc sheets to re-make the roofs.

“Eight years after setting up our return trunk, we recycled it again and there are its veneers,” says the roof of one of his rooms Fatimetu Hamed, a neighbor of Mestehia.

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“The UN has lied to us and left us here as refugees forever,” Fatimetu conveys a feeling of frustration.

Mestehia was born in 1953 in the town of Guelta, in the then Spanish Sahara, and today resides in Smara, one of the five camps built in the Algerian desert in 1975 to house those fleeing violence. Her husband died in the war between the Polisario Front and Morocco in the 1980s.

Like all refugee camps, temporarily provided for being a status that is expected to be transitory, it lacks infrastructure, industries, and its approximately 173,000 inhabitants subsist mainly from humanitarian aid in an environment of adverse climatic conditions.

The Polisario Front, a movement that fights for the independence of Western Sahara, manages these camps from Rabuni, a site that houses the institutions and where the international cooperative members who work throughout the humanitarian network reside without which they could not survive.

“The Saharawis are refugees for a political cause, they are here because their land is occupied and because the UN has not yet fulfilled its promise to resolve their conflict by holding the referendum,” says in an interview with EFE Buhubeini Yahya, president of the Saharawi Red Crescent, the main humanitarian organization in the camps.

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“The humanitarian situation is very serious and is in a continuous deterioration due to the fall in funds,” says Yahya, who lists the cuts in the basic basket or the increase in the levels of malnutrition and anemia among women and children.

It foresees a few months of red alert “if the contributions of the donor countries are not increased.”

It was the year 1991 when Mestehia built his trunk shortly after the ceasefire that gave a truce to 15 years of war, since Spain withdrew in 1975 from its former colony and Morocco entered to control the territory that it now maintains under its dominion.

January 26, 1992 was the date set to hold a referendum of self-determination, eternally postponed.

The call was suspended due to the discrepancies between the parties – Polisario Front and Morocco – about the census and the lists of people eligible to vote. Despite the attempts of the UN and its established mission to organize and supervise the vote (MINURSO), there has been no agreement since then.

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Morocco later definitively dislinked and in 2007 presented to the UN its proposal for autonomy within the Moroccan borders to resolve the conflict, a proposal praised by its main ally, France, and lately supported by the Spanish Government.

However, the Polisario categorically rejects it and maintains its commitment to the vote.

“We were very happy to hear that news (in 1991). The feeling of returning home and to our land, to reunite with our relatives who stayed in the Western Sahara,” Mestehia recalls.

They filled the trunks with food, clothes and the few possessions they had in humble jaimas, more designed to cope with the way back; but there was no return: “The trunks stayed here,” he says.

One more year, International Refugee Day has passed but the return continues to fly over the camps: “It is true that at another time it was much closer, but we continue to firmly believe that independence will come, as long as we continue to breathe and live, that dream will remain,” Mestehia sighs.

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International

Peruvian presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra dies in campaign road accident

Presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra, representing the Partido de los Trabajadores y Emprendedores (PTE) in Peru, died in a traffic accident while traveling to a campaign event, local authorities confirmed Sunday.

Becerra, who also served as president of the centrist political party, ranked among the lowest in opinion polls in a crowded field of more than 30 candidates competing in the presidential election scheduled for April 12.

Recent surveys place Rafael López Aliaga at the top of voter preferences.

The accident occurred near the town of Ayacucho, in southern Peru, when the vehicle carrying the candidate overturned for reasons that remain under investigation.

“The candidate Becerra has died,” Balvin Huamani, mayor of the district of Pilpichaca, told RPP radio.

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According to Huamani, he personally transported the 61-year-old candidate to a local health center, where doctors confirmed his death.

The Jurado Nacional de Elecciones (JNE) expressed condolences over Becerra’s passing and wished a speedy recovery to the three people who were traveling with him and were injured in the crash.

International

Noboa intensifies anti-cartel crackdown as violence persists in Ecuador

A close ally of Washington, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has pursued a hardline security strategy against cocaine cartels for more than two years, yet homicide, disappearance and extortion rates remain high across the country.

Between Sunday night and the morning of March 31, Ecuador’s armed forces will launch a “very strong offensive” with “advisory support” from the United States, Interior Minister John Reimberg announced Tuesday.

The government has kept details of the operation confidential and has not confirmed whether U.S. troops will be deployed on Ecuadorian soil, as has occurred at times during Noboa’s administration.

As part of the security measures, residents in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, and El Oro will be subject to a nightly curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time for the next two weeks.

“We are in a war,” Reimberg said, urging citizens to remain indoors. “Do not take risks. Stay home and allow the security forces and our allies to do the work that must be done.”

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Although Ecuador does not produce cocaine, it has become a major departure point for drugs heading to the United States. Meanwhile, the violence associated with trafficking has increasingly affected the local population.

Bordering the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has gone from being considered a relatively peaceful country to recording one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America—52 killings per 100,000 inhabitants—according to the **Observatory of Organized Crime.

International

Peruvian presidential candidate proposes death penalty amid crime surge

Peru is facing an unprecedented surge in crime ahead of its presidential election scheduled for April 12, with violence fueled by extortion networks and a wave of contract killings linked to organized crime.

Police data show that 2,200 homicides tied to organized crime were recorded in 2025, while extortion complaints increased by 19%, underscoring the growing security crisis in the South American nation.

Amid this backdrop, presidential candidate Álvarez has proposed reinstating the death penalty if elected, arguing that extreme measures are needed to curb the violence.

To implement the proposal, Álvarez said Peru would withdraw from the American Convention on Human Rights—also known as the Pact of San José—which the country signed in 1978. The agreement prevents member states that have abolished capital punishment from reinstating it.

Currently, Peruvian law only allows the death penalty in cases of treason during wartime.

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“We have to leave the Pact of San José and apply the death penalty in Peru because those miserable criminals don’t deserve to live,” Álvarez told AFP during a campaign stop at a market in Callao, the port city neighboring Lima.

“An iron fist against those criminals,” he added, proposing to declare hitmen as military targets.

During the campaign event, Álvarez walked through stalls selling vegetables, groceries, and fish, greeting vendors while musicians played cumbia music nearby.

The 62-year-old candidate, who spent more than four decades working in television as a comedian, is a newcomer to politics and is running for president under the País para Todos party.

Polls place him fifth in voter preference with nearly 4% support in a fragmented race featuring 36 candidates.