Videos

Australian filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw go to the Polisario governed refugee camps in the Algerian desert to make a film about a family reunion. Everything changes when the black Saharawis start to talk about a different subject...Their freedom.

In September 2006, with the co-operation of the Polisario, we went to the camps to make a film about a family reunion. After 10 days of being introduced by Polisario officials to women who were to take part in a UN Family Reunion Program, we met Fetim. 

Matala is a character in Stolen. He lives in the Polisario refugee camps in Algeria. He traveled 1,800 km overland from the refugee camps to Mauritania to tell us how slavery is affecting the lives of his family and his people. This is his plea to the world.

Interview with UN in 2007 clearly stating they are aware slavery exists in the Polisario refugee camps and the surrounding territory, including Western Sahara. This video is made available because of accusations made by the interviewee that we manipulated her interview.

This interview was recorded in 2007, at the time Saltana was fighting in court to remain in Spain. When Saltana was 6, she was taken from Mauritania to the Polisario camps by Gueiwarra El Bardi, a 'white' woman. Saltana lived in the camps as the slave for El Bardi's family for the next 3 years. Saltana has now won the right to remain in Spain, she lives like any other teenager in the world and plans to go to University.

This is an extended version of a scene from Stolen. It tells the story of one family trying to find their daughter lost to slavery for more 30 years. They live in Laayoune, Western Sahara. Salem Mulaha, which tanslates literally as "happy to be with my master" lives only 10 minutes away with a "white" family.

M'Seida was stolen from her family as a small child. Her children have been stolen from her and live in the Polisario refugee camps with their "white" masters. She has been unable to register for the UN family reunion program because she has a different name to her children.

Mull El Eid doesn't know where her three children are. She was forced to leave her master's house when she was too old to work. As payment for her freedom her master collects her pension from the Moroccan government. She has nowhere to live.

I was going to the shop with Aminatou and her cousin Tara when the other 'white' children started insulting them, they called Aminatou a monkey. This incident brought to my memory what a Polisario leader, jokingly said to us, "Fetim's younger daughter looked like a monkey."