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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in People’s Dispatch.

Dismissing a now-deleted tweet by Kenyan President William Ruto about rescinding recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the Kenyan foreign ministry clarified on September 16 that it would continue to maintain diplomatic relations with SADR and support its right to self-determination.

Also known as Western Sahara, SADR is a founding member of the African Union (AU) and the continent’s last colony, fighting a war for liberation from Morocco. The Moroccan occupation of most of SADR’s territory since 1975 has been receiving increasing Western support, despite a consensus in international law that Morocco has no legitimate territorial claims over SADR, whose right to self-determination is well-recognized.

But Kenya has emerged as an important ally, championing SADR’s cause over the last decade. Ruto’s decision to change this foreign policy, only a day after his swearing-in ceremony, which was also attended by SADR President Brahim Ghali, was reversed as a result of public backlash and dissonance within the foreign ministry, sources and reports indicate.

“Kenya’s position [on SADR] is fully aligned with… the AU Charter which calls for the unquestionable and inalienable right of a people to self-determination,” read the foreign ministry communique dated September 16, addressing all of Kenya’s missions and directorates.

This communique, which was made public on Monday, September 19, reiterated, “UN Security Council Resolution 690 (1991)… calls for the self-determination of Western Sahara through a free and fair referendum administered by the UN and the AU. Kenya supports implementation of this UN security Council Resolution to the letter.”

Implicitly criticizing the new president’s hasty announcement, the communique signed by principal secretary Ambassador Macharia Kamau added, “It should be equally noted that Kenya does not conduct its foreign policy on Twitter or any other social media platforms, rather through official government documents and frameworks.”

Following a meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, Ruto had tweeted on September 14, “At State House in Nairobi, received a congratulatory message from His Majesty King Mohammed VI. Kenya rescinds its recognition of the SADR and initiates steps to wind down the entity’s presence in the country.”

While the tweet was soon deleted, Morocco’s foreign ministry released an official statement on its website the same day, announcing: “Following the message of His Majesty King Mohammed VI to the new President of the Republic of Kenya, Mr. William Ruto, the Republic of Kenya has decided to withdraw the recognition of the so-called ‘SADR’ and to initiate the steps to close its representation in Nairobi.”

The statement further claimed that Morocco and Kenya had signed a joint statement agreeing that “in deference to the principle of territorial integrity and non-interference, the Republic of Kenya [had extended] total support to the serious and credible autonomy plan proposed by the Kingdom of Morocco” as the only possible solution to the Sahara issue.

The Kenyan foreign ministry’s communique two days later in effect clarified that the tweet by the president had been arbitrary and had no bearing on the country’s foreign policy. This was a setback to Morocco, which had declared a diplomatic victory over SADR prematurely, before any official announcement by the Kenyan government.

Asked to explain the sudden change in stance and dissonance within the government, Kenya’s Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua told KTN News on Monday, “This was an administration in transition—[having been] only one day in office… We had many visitors, there [were] so many delegations, and communications had to be made.” He said this without specifying which countries’ delegations or visitors had sought for such a communication to be made.

Gachagua stressed that the most important thing was that “a clarification had been made,” and that the country’s position was “that of the United Nations and that of the African Union.”

United States and Israel Allegedly Lobbying Kenya

Even before the election was held in August this year, the United States and the United Kingdom, which were allegedly supporting Ruto’s candidacy, had sought from him a reversal of Kenya’s policy on SADR during his foreign trips, alleged Booker Ngesa Omole, National Vice Chairperson of the Communist Party of Kenya (CPK).

The UN, the AU, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the International Court of Justice all maintain that Morocco has no legitimate territorial claims over SADR. Nevertheless, in late 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump had announced his decision to open a consulate in occupied Western Sahara, in effect recognizing it as Moroccan sovereign territory.

After Ruto was declared the president-elect, a presidential delegation from the United States earlier this month and the subsequent Israeli delegation led by its minister of intelligence, had both allegedly brought up Kenya’s policy vis-à-vis SADR in the meetings with Ruto, Omole claimed.

Morocco, which is the second largest exporter of fertilizer in the world, had in the meantime seen a further opening in Ruto’s election promise of providing cheap fertilizers, he explained. With an apparent assurance from Morocco about “providing fertilizers at subsidized prices, Ruto went on national television to announce that he will provide subsidies to all farmers on fertilizers within two weeks time. A day later, he announced he was rescinding SADR’s recognition,” Omole said.

The bulk of the phosphate used in Moroccan fertilizers is extracted from the occupied Western Sahara. “The Moroccan regime uses the resources stolen from Western Sahara to bribe foreign officials to obtain recognition for its illegal occupation of our homeland,” Kamal Fadel, SADR’s Representative to Australia and the Pacific, told Peoples Dispatch.

“Those who receive the stolen goods from Western Sahara are complicit in the war crime of pillage and their involvement is a tacit support to an illegal occupation—one with continuing notorious human rights abuses occurring during a time of armed conflict,” he added.

Pointing out that within an hour of Ruto’s announcement, “Kenyans had jumped on his tweet, attacking him for surrendering sovereign foreign policy to Moroccan bribes,” Omole explained that there is a strong sentiment against what is perceived as a return to old foreign policy.

‘Kenyan Population Supports the Sahrawi People’

“Except for the last 10 years, Kenya has not had a progressive foreign policy. It was always a wait-and-see opportunistic policy, aligning with whichever position brings in most alms from foreign countries. So our relations with Western Sahara had always been strained,” Omole told Peoples Dispatch.

In 2006, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki had placed diplomatic relations with SADR on “a temporary freeze” only months after first receiving diplomatic credentials from its ambassador. “But the Kenyan masses are always ahead of their governments. There was an uproar here, led by the Kenya Western Sahara Friendship Society (KWSFS),” said Omole, who has been a member of the KWSFS for 20 years.

“This organization has been fostering people-to-people friendship between the two countries. A few times, we have also hosted families from the refugee camps [of the displaced Sahrawis in Algeria]. Kenyan people lobbied the government to condemn Morocco’s occupation,” he explained. Under popular pressure, “Kibaki had to initiate the process to re-establish diplomatic relations with SADR.”

While this was unfolding, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, who at the time were contesting the 2013 election together as presidential and vice-presidential candidates, were put on trial by the International Criminal Court (ICC). They were tried for charges of crimes against humanity for political violence in the aftermath of the 2007 presidential election. The charges were subsequently dropped.

However, Kenyatta did not take the alleged U.S. and U.K. support for this trial well, Omole claimed. “After he won the election, he went about changing Kenya’s foreign policy against the interests of the West. He pursued alternative trade relations with the East, instead of continuing to rely on the West. He refused to follow Israel’s line and supported Palestine. He opened the SADR’s embassy in Nairobi, and, for the first time, Kenya appointed an ambassador to SADR. For the first time, a Kenyan ambassador presented his credentials to the president of the SADR.”

In the regional and international forums of the AU and the UN, Kenya actively supported the cause of the SADR. “The progressive foreign policy has continued since,” and during this period Kenyan people’s relations and solidarity with the Sahrawi people has deepened, Omole said.

There is a high degree of “awareness among the Kenyan people about the Sahrawi people’s struggle for liberation. It seems our new president was out of touch with the reality that the Kenyan population supports the Sahrawi people, regardless of the divisions that will be sown by governments,” he observed.

MAMFE, Cameroon—One Saturday morning in March 2021, 17-year-old Beatrice* and 19-year-old Patience* stepped out of a single-room apartment they shared to buy food near the Adagom refugee settlement in Nigeria’s southeastern Cross River State.

That’s when a young man they knew as “Mr. Patrick” approached them.

He asked the teenagers if they were interested in moving to the United States to work as caregivers for a monthly salary.

The two wasted no time in accepting the offer, which came with the condition that they would have to work in a bar in Cameroon, their home country, for at least a year to earn enough to make the journey.

“We immediately began to pack our bags and, after two days, we left for Cameroon,” Beatrice, now 19, said. “We were excited to hear that our stay in Cameroon was temporary and, after a year, we would be traveling to America.”

A little over three years ago, both women, who used to live close to each other, fled their homes in the southwestern Cameroonian town of Akwaya after soldiers stormed their compounds and began to burn houses as the war between English-speaking separatists and government forces in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions intensified. After spending days struggling through thick forests and grasslands, they arrived in Nigeria in November 2019, quickly seeking refuge in the Adagom refugee settlement, where about 5,000 Cameroonians now live. The site is on the outskirts of Ogoja town in Nigeria’s southeastern Cross River State.

For the two days this reporter spoke with the petite women, they were dressed in the same outfit: Blue jean trousers and faded t-shirts. They also appeared emaciated.

According to sources this reporter interviewed, trafficking of adults and children has become rampant as a war rages in Cameroon between the Francophone government and Anglophone forces.

‘We Just Had to Leave’

Both women fled Cameroon on their own, leaving behind relatives, some of whom later fled to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Cameroon’s southwest and to other refugee settlements in southeastern Nigeria.

An Emergency Food Security Assessment that the United Nations conducted a year ago found more than 80 percent of Cameroonian households in refugee settlements and those in host communities are “severely or moderately food insecure.” Three in four refugees may be engaging in child labor and survival sex, according to the UN.

Beatrice and Patience, who spent three years at Adagom on a $2-per-day allowance they earned, jumped at the chance of paid jobs in Cameroon and an eventual trip to the United States.

“At Adagom, we only earned money during planting and harvesting seasons and, once these seasons are over, we go back to begging for survival,” Beatrice said. “When we heard there was something better waiting for us outside Nigeria, we just had to leave.”

Beatrice and Patience had no time to tell anyone they were going.

They arrived in the southwestern Cameroonian town of Mamfe alongside Mr. Patrick, who drove them in his red Volkswagen Passat car. That is when the women said they met a couple of other girls from the same refugee settlement in Nigeria at a bar where they quickly began to work as waiters. Later, they labored as cooks when a restaurant was added to the bar, which was run by three young men, including Mr. Patrick himself, according to the women.

“Behind the bar is a three-bedroom apartment, where everyone who worked there lived,” Patience said. “At some point it was only us (Beatrice and Patience), who remained as workers at the bar. The other two girls we met there were taken away from the apartment one morning.”

Less than a week after they arrived, each of the three men began to make advances at them, demanding sex and threatening to lie to Cameroonian authorities that the teenagers worked for the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF) one of the two biggest  armed English-speaking separatist groups.

“They said if we didn’t do what they asked us to do, they’d make our lives miserable,” Patience said. “We had to choose between doing what they wanted or having our lives turned upside down.”

Fearing that they could lose everything that was offered to them and even end up in jail, they gave in. Within weeks, the teenagers were pregnant. But after they gave birth to two boys in February, the traffickers took away their babies. They told the women that they needed to prepare for their trip to the United States and that U.S. authorities wouldn’t admit them if they went with children.

But the trip never happened. Instead, the bar closed in April and its owners fled with the babies.

“They sent us to the market one afternoon to buy baby toiletries and when we returned, we found that both the bar and our apartment had been locked,” Patience said. “The men had left with our children.”

Not having anywhere to stay, a Mamfe trader whom Beatrice and Patience often bought baby toiletries from took both of them into her home, where they remain for now.

‘No Mother Can Rest Until She Finds Her Child’

The women have solicited help from local activists and a Nigerian NGO to find their babies.

“We reported the incident to the police in Mamfe but haven’t heard anything positive from them since then,” Beatrice said. “We also informed [local] pastors and human rights activists, and they’ve been going ‘round the [southwest] area, asking people if they know anything about the men who took the children.”

A senior police officer, who was unauthorized to speak on the matter, told Toward Freedom human trafficking is growing in the city and traffickers are hard to track.

“They receive protection from armed groups,” the officer said. These groups control certain areas in the southwest. “[The police] isn’t equipped enough to engage these elements.”

In Nigeria’s Cross River State, from where Beatrice and Patience were trafficked, authorities explained policing in Adagom is difficult because of its distance from the state’s capital, Calabar, about 304 kilometers (188 miles) south of Adagom.

“Things can only change if funding improves,” said Godwin Eyake, who heads the Cross River State command of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).

A local NGO is helping Beatrice and Patience find their sons by visiting orphanages and writing advertisements.

“It’s hard when you are not sure where the babies were taken to,” said Salome Gambo, a researcher at human-rights group Caprecon Development and Peace Initiative. “We are doing what we are doing just in case it happened that the children were trafficked to Nigeria.”

Gambo admitted recovering the children will be difficult.

However, for the mothers of the babies, there’ll be no stop in their search.

“We will not rest until we find our children,” Patience said. “No mother can rest until she finds her child.”

*Names have been changed

Philip Obaji, Jr., is a journalist based in Nigeria. He won the Future Awards Africa Prize in Education in 2014, and the Future Awards Africa Prize for Young Person of the Year in 2015. Follow him on Twitter at @PhilipObaji.