There's a new glimmer of hope that Africa's longest-running territorial dispute - over the future of Western Sahara - is inching closer to a resolution. Groundbreaking talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front, an independence group representing the indigenous Sahrawi people, are taking place near New York City.

If the negotiations succeed, 160,000 Sahrawi refugees may finally get to go home after a 32-year exile in the Algerian desert, where temperatures sometimes rise above 50 degrees celsius (122 degrees fahrenheit). If the talks come to nothing, Polisario has threatened to restart its war for independence.

Sahrawi refugees rarely make the news. Most of them fled in 1975, when Morocco annexed Western Sahara, sparking conflict with Polisario which only ended with a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in 1991. For decades they have been dependent on food aid, but there's not much money for them and shortages are frequent.

A February 2007 mission of U.N. health experts found "dire" conditions in the camps. Dangerous levels of malnutrition among children, as well as widespread anaemia, poor hygiene and high maternal mortality rates were some of the problems they discovered.

And life for indigenous Sahrawis still living in Western Sahara is tough too. They've been separated from their families, forcibly relocated and had their nomadic way of life "turned upside down by urbanisation and sedentarisation...a process encouraged by Morocco to enhance security and facilitate surveillance", says an International Crisis Group report.

Western Sahara is an area the size of the United Kingdom with 260,000 Sahrawis and Moroccan settlers. It is split in two by a 2,500 kilometre wall - built by Morocco during the war - which separates it into Moroccan and Polisario-controlled territories.

Both sides of the wall are heavily mined, but several thousand Sahrawi nomads live in the mined areas, as these photos show.

Back in Long Island, New York, the two sides are sitting down for the first time in years to try to break a deadlock over the future status of Western Sahara. But the proposals they've brought to the table don't look particularly groundbreaking.

Morocco remains opposed to the idea of full independence - a key Polisario demand - but offers to concede some autonomy and is willing to have this ratified by a referendum. Morocco says the most it will offer is autonomy because the Sahrawis are scattered across Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Morocco.

On the other side of the room, Polisario maintains its demand for a free referendum with independence as an option. But it does offer one concession: if Western Sahara becomes independent, it will grant citizenship to all Moroccans living in the territory and offer Morocco joint security arrangements and economic cooperation.

The process has gained new impetus because the United States is now impatient for a deal, hoping it will bring more cooperation between North African states and help combat terrorist groups in the regions bordering the Sahara. The negotiations include representives from Algeria, where Polisario is based, and neighbouring Mauritania.

An additional complicating factor is that Polisario declared the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in 1976 with a government-in-exile based in Algeria. The SADR is now recognised by many governments and is a full member of the African Union. Last year it promised to give foreign oil companies exploration rights if it achieves independence.

If you want to find out more, you can read the AlertNet backgrounder to why the war began and what happened next.

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