EAST Lancashire firefighters are sending vital supplies to Algeria to help refugees living in the Sahara Desert.

A container packed with seized counterfeit clothing, water pumps and Land Rover parts is being sent from Clayton-le-Moors to refugee camps at Tindouf, Southern Algeria, later this month.

It is the latest stage in a £50,000 project organised by the Lancashire Fire Service with the charity War on Want to help the 200,000 Saharawi people made homeless in a territorial dispute 25 years ago.

Lancashire firefighters have already made three trips to the Algerian desert to help the Saharawis. On two of the missions they had to be accompanied by armed guards because the political situation in Algeria was so unstable.

The items will make life easier for the Saharawi people, who had to flee their homeland in the Western Sahara when it was invaded by Morocco.

Retired fire chief Colin Cunliffe, one of the organisers of the project, said life was very harsh for the refugees.

" It is an inhospitable area of the world where in wintertime the temperature is below freezing and in the summer you are looking at temperatures of 120 or 130 degrees. These people have been living there for the last 25 years, surviving on international aid."

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