Do you know the hot air you feel when you open your oven? That heat that feels like it will burn you instantly? Now, imagine being exposed to that feeling, not for just 10 seconds when you check on a cake, but for 24 hours straight. For 4 months. This is the reality of a summer in the Sahrawi refugee camps.
My name is Zeina, I’m 20 years old, and I was born in a refugee camp. Now, you might ask yourself, “Why was she born in a refugee camp?” and “Why has she continued to live in a place meant to be temporary, for two decades?” Let me explain why, and what Siemens Energy has to do with it.
The Sahrawi people come from Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony. In 1975, instead of gaining independence, we were invaded by Morocco. A brutal war started, and countless Sahrawi civilians lost their lives. Sahrawis including My family had no choice but to flee our homeland. Running away from the massacres Morocco was committing against us. The war lasted until 1991, when a ceasefire was agreed to. Since then, Western Sahara’s fate was supposed to be decided through a referendum. But now, 30 years later, there has been no referendum. No resolution. Why?
Because when occupation becomes profitable, those in power are reluctant to give it up. And that is what has happened. Not just with phosphate, fishing, agriculture and so many other sources –but now, renewable energy.
Siemens Energy is building wind farms in occupied Western Sahara. Some are already running and more are planned.
And imagine who is Siemens working with. With the company Nareva owned by the Moroccan king himself. So while he is filling up his bags, he is supposed to sit on the same table with Sahrawis and negotiate seriously?
Also, you are enabling Morocco’s settler policy –creating jobs for thousands of Moroccans. According to the European Commission, right now, only about 25% of the population in the occupied territory are actually Sahrawi origin. And this settlement policy violates international law. As your own Parliament’s research division noted is that Morocco strategic transfer of civilians into Western Sahara is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
And as the European Court of Justice confirmed this October, we, the Sahrawis, have to consent to any activity in Western Sahara.
What is also infuriating is to see how you are normalizing the occupation, greenwashing it. You are claiming to fight climate change, but what you are actually doing is that you keep a whole people in an area of extreme risk for ‘unsurvivable’ heat and humidity. Already right now we are experiencing the longest summers with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees.
So we are not only facing displacement, but we are at the front line of the climate crisis. In the 70s, my people fled here for safety. And now they are facing the same risk again.
The Morocco-an occupation is keeping us in the exile, I’ve lived my entire life here, I have never seen my homeland, some of Sahrwai people were born here and they died here too
I don’t want to have the same destiny.
I have one simple dream: To sit in my own balcony drinking my evening cup of tea in my own home. I want to meet my relatives who I never met! Just as you all do! Today, there is still a wall dividing our people, just like the wall that used to divide families west and east in Germany.
QUESTIONS
How are you explaining to investors that you are active in an occupied territory?
How can you claim to care about the climate crisis while supporting an occupation that displaces us in one of the most affected regions?
How will you respect our right to self-determination and our resources?
