ALGIERS - Tens of thousands of people need urgent help after torrential rains flooded their refugee camps in southwest Algeria, leaving them without shelter and short of food, officials said on Tuesday.
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and officials at the Sahrawi refugee camps said the rains had washed away many of the mud-brick houses where some 158,000 refugees have been living since fleeing the disputed Western Sahara territory.
"Heavy rains over the past few days destroyed 50 percent of shelters," a spokesman for the Western Sahara's independence movement, the Polisario Front, told Reuters in Algiers.
UNHCR said some 50,000 refugees had been left homeless and it was preparing to rush relief supplies to the camps.
"An airlift currently being arranged will deliver lightweight tents, blankets, jerry cans, mattresses and plastic sheeting from our regional warehouse in Jordan," the UNHCR said in a statement posted on its Web site.
The Sahrawi Red Crescent said the situation was worsening, and urged donors and international organisations to speed up their efforts as food stocks dwindled.
"We launch this emergency call to relieve thousands of women, children and elderly people. We urge donors to intervene as soon as possible to rebuild schools and hospitals," it said in a statement.
The conflict in Western Sahara was triggered by Morocco's seizure of the northwest African desert territory shortly after former colonial power Spain withdrew in 1975.
The Polisario Front, whose principal backer is Algeria, fought a 16-year guerrilla war with Morocco.
The United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991 with the promise of a referendum on the territory's future but Morocco has refused to allow a vote on self-determination.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
