Transportation routes reflect the level of development that includes the structures on and around which the economic and urban facilities are established, ones that contribute to the progress of humanity. How heartening it would have been if the agreement to establish a road that links Tindouf, southwest of Algeria, and the Sahara provinces that are under the hegemony of Morocco, had gone beyond the framework of exchanging visits among people with Sahara origins, towards implementing a project that restores the trade movement that shone over the region when there were no border or barriers. At the time, nomads coming from Timbuktu, Tindouf and Nouadhibo, used to trade handmade items and products, dates, and silk. At that time, the borders were not barriers and political conflicts did not have precedent over the traditions of nomadic life in the wide land of God, until the phenomenon of inherited borders from colonialism emerged in the form of border and regional conflicts that impeded even the simplest projects aimed at consolidating the movement of people and items with complete freedom. The high pace of applications submitted to the Refugee Relief Organization to secure the exchange of visits for around 42 thousand persons from both sides, necessitated resorting to land trips after the flights lost some of their purposes. The residents concerned with this initiative, who were divided by political conflicts that were behind the outbreak of the Sahara issue, are now contenting themselves with a minimal level of hope to reunite, albeit for a few days. The conflict has lasted to such an extent that such visits compensate the residents' nostalgia for the day of reunion. However, the most dangerous aspect of the continued crisis was not the fact that it marked its 35th anniversary without the appearance of any signs of solution. Rather, it lies in the fact that people belonging to the same tribes are filled with contradictory ideas about their reality and future. Certainly, children who were born in camps more than three decades ago do not have the same feelings and aspirations of their brothers who are in the Sahara provinces. Such contradictory conditions should be an incentive for the parties concerned with negotiations, so as to take into account that, regardless of the level of divergent positions, it does not justify the continuation of such a humanitarian situation, one that violates the most basic conditions of dignity and identity humiliation. The initiative of exchanging visits was aimed at building confidence and taking into account the human dimension in the repercussions of a conflict that separated the members of the same family and tribe. However, the residents who responded en masse to the opportunity of a reunion revealed that the lack of trust is there against their will. While they give their blessing to the establishment of the route of hope to increase the number of visits, they hope this route would become one for ending the suffering. If the Laayoune-Tindouf road is not coupled with providing more rooms for dialogue, which goes beyond exchanging visits towards exchanging interests and recognizing the facts, then the dust of conflicts will blow up the milestones of this route one day, just as the Sahara winds blow to conceal or destroy the features of accord and fidelity. The UN Refugee Agency does not want its initiative, which was crowned with a Moroccan-Algerian agreement, to enjoy more than a humanitarian dimension. It is working towards convincing the states and donors that the situation in the Sahara refugee camps needs further aid. There is still controversy over the need for a census of the refugees in order to identify their needs, and this reveals that the project to establish the route remains risky – particularly when questions pertaining to the identity of the people who will benefit from the exchanged humanitarian visits are raised. Opening a road between Tindouf and Laayoune tomorrow is of critical importance, considering that what cannot be resolved politically can find its way towards understandings of humanitarian nature. The irony is that another route to exchange visits and interests is still without exits. This route pertains to the closed land border between Morocco and Algeria at the end of the northern line of Tindouf and Laayoune. During the period of accord between the two neighboring countries, passageways heading east toward the Maghreb and Arab states, and heading south towards Africa were formed, and the railway line there was known as the gate to the black continent and the East. The reopening of this route does not require more than a political willpower that crystallizes the traditions of good neighborliness and cooperation. But in depth, it reflects to what extent the concept of border is still subject to excessive visions, which if not developed by political and humanitarian commitments, will not be far from many of the variables that threaten many political axioms. After all, increasing the temperature should be met with a coolness in the bodies that moves the minds.
