For the good part of 30 years the people of the Sahara, known as the Sahrawis, have been caught in the middle of a conflict for control of the Western Sahara, a vastly desolate region between Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, but that is vastly rich in minerals.

The conflict for control of the former Spanish colony opposes Morocco, which claims historic ties to the territory and the Polisario Front, a group which fought the Spaniards for independence and now rejects Morocco's claim over the territory along with Rabat's offers of autonomy, and insisting upon full independence.

Multiple efforts to resolve the crisis have failed, with each side blaming the other for intransigence. The latest initiative was launched by Morocco in 2007, offering the Sahrawis "full autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty," a concept rejected by the Polisario, although talks under United Nations auspices continues.

Meanwhile however, tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees languish in refugee camps controlled by the Polisario, where they live under some of the harshest conditions imaginable.

Morocco accuses the Algerian-backed Polisario of forcibly detaining the refugees in five camps around the region of Tindouf, in Algeria, under a news blackout. The exact number of refugees currently living in the camps is unclear as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has been refused access to the camps by Algeria and the Polisario. Estimates pieced together by refugees who have managed to escape, place the figure around 90,000.

Moroccan officials and refugees who have managed to escape from camps and interviewed by the Middle East Times say the reason the refugees are forcibly detained in the camps is financially driven, as resources allocated to the refugees are hijacked by corrupt officials of the Polisario, who then sell the humanitarian aid on the black market in Algeria and neighboring Mauritania.

Refugees interviewed describe daily life in the camps as difficult, monotonous and with no prospect for a better future. Humanitarian aid that filters through is largely insufficient and the refugees subsist on diets of rice, lentils, flour and oil. Fruits, vegetables and meat must be purchased, but the refugees often lack the resources to do so.

The tragedy is further amplified by families who are forced to separate as the Polisario, according to interviewed refugees, refuses to allow entire families from traveling outside camps together.

Refugees who have managed to escape, such as Naba Deddah al-Meki and Naha al-Salek Sidi, two women among a group of eight refugees brought to the United States by the Moroccan American Center for Policy, relate their harrowing experience in getting away from the camps in Algeria to Morocco, and leaving behind husbands and children.

The two women offered a brief apercu into the hardships faced by tens of thousands of Sahrawis who continue to exist in a political limbo, unwarranted actors in a lingering conflict in which they have no voice and little hope for a better future.

Estimates put the number of refugees who have managed to flee the camps at around 7,000.