Moroccan Sahrawis Stories in Refugee Camps

  Ghalli Bentaleb


When Ghalli was 10 years old she was sent to Cuba without her parent’s permission. Like more than 1,400 others that year and thousands of others in previous and subsequent years, Ghalli was chosen because she was young and deemed “well-prepared” academically. Ghalli was kept in Cuba for 13 years without any contact with her family. In the mornings, she studied Communism, Markist/Leninist ideology and the principles of Fidel Castro’s regime. In the afternoons, she was forced to work in the sugar cane, tobacco and citrus fields. During the summers, her “vacation time” was spent undergoing training for the supposed upcoming “war” with the great Imperialist enemy, the United States.


In 1999, Ghalli’s father, a former Polisario official (please see the bio of Hossein Taleb), went to Cuba to try to rescue her, but he was unsuccessful. In 2002, when Ghalli finished her studies and was allowed to return to the Tindouf Camps, she escaped to Mauritania by hiding in a rented truck used for humanitarian aid which had been arranged by her father. Ghalli’s father met her in Mauritania and from there they traveled to Europe and returned to Morocco.


Today, Ghalli is a general practice physician in a Laayoune hospital. Ghalli strongly believes that the deportation of children to Cuba must stop and that it is not necessary to pull one away from one’s family in order to get a good education. Most importantly, Ghalli does not want the next generation of children to suffer as she has.


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