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I was born near Smara in the valley of Saguia in 1953. It was a very simple life. Like all the bedouin we would cultivate only in times of rain, we had animals and we would go to the city to sell them and buy goods. We would dig wells for water by choosing special places near the valley where it had been raining the year before. We were only traveling from place to place following the rain.
The invasion was terrible, there was a lot of killing and the Saharawi were driven out by force. We fled because the Moroccans committed many crimes against us and we could not stay. Some of my family were kidnapped and we never heard about them again. We came here by foot, the women and children went first and the men defended them. I had joined the Polisario in 1974, they told us we had the right to build our own state and I was ready to die for this. During the first invasion the Moroccans entered with great force and we had almost no experience in war.
We were very optimistic about being successful and with all our gains we were almost certain about winning the war with Morocco. We were told that instead of continuing to fight we could take another way were we could choose in a referendum whether to join to the Moroccan kingdom or to build our own state. We thought is was the right thing to do because we knew all the Saharawi people would vote for our own state. Now I believe that only the stronger wins and the world could not differentiate between the oppressor and the oppressed, and, since the Saharawis were not given the right to express their rights, we must get that right by our hands, or we will wait for the world to come to an end! We are sorry for not continuing fighting, why did we stop? We would not have wasted all this time in nothing.
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