Released Moroccan POW marries fiancee who waited 24 years for his release
Morocco, Local, 1/6/2004

A Moroccan prisoner of war (POW), released last October from the prisons of the separatist movement Polisario, has recently married his fiancee who awaited him during the 24 years of his detention.

Abderrahim and Bahia celebrated their engagement in 1979 shortly before he was sent on duty to the Moroccan southern provinces, the Sahara, where he was captured during the war before being imprisoned in Tindouf (southwestern Algeria) by this movement that is disputing Morocco over the Sahara.

After six years of detention, Bahia received the first letter from Abderrahim via the Red Cross, to inform her he was still alive.

The couple kept in touch by exchanging letters. Bahia, who was illiterate, learned to write and read to keep the intimacy of the relationship.

"For me, it was as if he travelled somewhere and he would be back someday," Bahia said in a documentary aired Sunday by Moroccan TV "2M," insisting that she never lost hope that her fiancee would be back.

On his part, the released soldier said "I was convinced that Bahia would wait for me" and "I've always trusted her blindly since the first day I met her."

Abderrahman was amongst a group of 300 POWs who were recently released after a mediation of Libya's Leader of the Revolution Colonel Muammar al Qathafi.

The Moroccan prisoners detained in Tindouf are considered the longest-serving POWs in the world. Some of them have been held in captivity for over 28 years.

Several international organization and world leaders have called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of the Moroccan prisoners who are still detained in Tindouf despite the UN-brokered ceasefire proclaimed in 1991.

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