The Last Colony

Portraits, first prize stories

October 31, 2009

Dada Mohammed Kehel, aged 54, in an area controlled by Polisario. The Saharawi people of Western Sahara have been involved in a decades-long dispute for independence, in land controlled by Morocco along the border with Algeria. A former Spanish colony, Western Sahara is Africa’s last open file at the United Nations Decolonization Committee. Morocco invaded the territory in 1975, forcing the Spanish to withdraw. Spain divided the land between Morocco and Mauritania. A Saharawi rebel group, the Polisario Front, which had formed earlier to fight the Spanish, began a guerilla war against the new occupiers, with the backing of Algeria, and forced the withdrawal of Mauritania in 1979. In the 1980s, Morocco built a 2,700-kilometer-long sand barrier and planted it with mines, dividing Western Sahara in two. Most Saharawi live in the inland desert behind this barrier, or in refugee camps in Algeria.

Commissioned by: Panos Pictures

 

Photo Credit: Andrew McConnell

Andrew McConnell was born 1977 and began his career as a press photographer covering the closing stages of the conflict in Northern Ireland and the transition to peace. In 2004, he left press photography to concentrate on documentary photography and has since worked on stories worldwide, covering events in Europe, Asia and in Africa, where he has lived for the past four years. His work regularly documents people and places that remain under-reported in the international media and his images have appeared internationally in publications such as National Geographic, Newsweek, Time, Der Spiegel, FT Magazine, Vanity Fair Italy, The Sunday Times Magazine and Internazionale.

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