Tindouf camps: The ordeal of refugees sacrificed on the altar
of embezzlement, fraud, and the moral bankruptcy of Polisario leaders
While thousands of Sahrawi families continue to survive in extremely precarious conditions within the Tindouf camps, a series of international financial scandals has once again brought to light the opaque, systemic, and predatory management of the Polisario Front leadership. Between personal enrichment, the embezzlement of international humanitarian aid, and recent cases of mass pyramid schemes, the rift between the camp population and its self-proclaimed leaders now appears irreversible.
This structural decline has come to a head at a pivotal moment in the region’s history: the Spanish Congress of Deputies has just approved a landmark bill granting Spanish citizenship to tens of thousands of Sahrawis born under the former colonial administration, as well as to their descendants.
This legislation, which paves the way for a large segment of the population to obtain European citizenship, starkly highlights the contrast between the aspirations for dignity of the Sahrawi people and the mafia-like practices of a desperate nomenklatura, widely condemned for its exploitative practices.
Humanitarian aid as a political tool:
the case of Fatima Mahfoud in Italy.
For several years, reports from international institutions, most notably that of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), have denounced the systematic siphoning of shipments of food, medicine, and logistical equipment intended for refugees.
Europe and international NGOs are funding a form of solidarity that, in reality, fuels a thriving black market, managed by the security apparatus and the movement’s representatives abroad.
In Italy, the protests have now entered the public sphere. Dissenting voices and Sahrawi activists are speaking out to condemn the actions of Fatima Mahfoud, the Polisario Front’s official representative in the Peninsula. Far from her official role as a humanitarian diplomat, her management is facing increasing criticism from the grassroots. Independent news platforms, such as the revelations relayed by the Mediterraneews portal, are echoing complaints from activists denouncing a complete lack of transparency.
They accuse the representative of exploiting the plight of children and medical assistance projects in Italy to siphon off funds that escape any independent oversight, funds that serve more to maintain the lifestyles of the movement’s leaders than to alleviate the suffering in the camps.
The “Infravest” affair: The mass pyramid scheme that is plundering the Tindouf camps:
This structural misappropriation of international aid is compounded by an unprecedented internal crisis that has plunged the local population into utter despair.
In September 2026, the Tindouf camps (particularly Rabouni and Chahid El Hafed) were rocked by the anger of hundreds of residents, merchants, and local cooperatives. They are all demanding the return of their funds, totaling approximately 6.6 million US dollars, following the collapse of the company “Infravest for Contracting and Investment”.
Operating with impunity in the camps since 2022 under the leadership of Sallamou Abba Ali, who has since fled to an unknown location with the funds, the company Infravest had cultivated a false sense of respectability through cultural patronage and sham construction projects. It thus established a veritable Ponzi scheme, devouring the meager savings of thousands of vulnerable Sahrawi families.
The total impunity enjoyed by Infravest for years in collecting funds from residents of a closed militarized zone demonstrates, at best, the passive complicity, and at worst, the active participation of high-ranking officials within the Polisario Front. Faced with the collapse of this system, anger is simmering, and the demonstrations of those who have been dispossessed are being severely controlled by the movement’s military apparatus, panicked by the fear that this latest scandal will definitively tarnish its international image.
An urgent call for international responsibility:
Faced with this alarming situation, the international community, the European Union, and donor countries can no longer turn a blind eye. Funding aid to the Tindouf camps without imposing a strict census of the population and an independent audit of distribution channels amounts to becoming complicit in a two-tiered predatory system that combines the theft of international aid with the financial exploitation of refugees.
At the very moment when Spain is preparing to
