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The Sahrawi pharmaceutical lab battling against sand and shortages: ‘We are a rose in the desert’ 

27 September 2026 at 05:00
Mohamed Lamin Abdi, director of the Mohamed Embarek Fakal·la Pharmaceutical Production Laboratory, poses in one of the facility’s rooms, on April 29, 2026.

The Mohamed Embarek Fakal·la Pharmaceutical Production Laboratory is sometimes called “a desert rose,” because no one expected something like this to grow here. Mulai Mesaud Jarrachi, the lab’s logistics manager and deputy director, explains it to EL PAÍS. And, when he says “here,” he gestures broadly toward the Algerian hamada: a stony, hostile desert with scorching temperatures, where the wind constantly whips up sand that seeps under doors (and even gets between your teeth).

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The portrait of Mohamed Embarek Fakal·la, a historical figure in the Sahrawi healthcare sector, hangs in the hallway that leads to the laboratory.In this image, lab technician Brahim Saleh Labeid handles IV bags intended for treatments in the Urology Department, on April 29, 2026. Exterior of Bachir Saleh National Hospital in Rabuni, in the administrative center of the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tinduf, Algeria.Brahim Saleh Labeid and Mohamed Lamin Abdi talk at the laboratory door on April 29.

© Monica Torres

Mulai Mesaud Jarrachi prepares eye drops in the sterile room at the laboratory in Tindouf, Algeria.

© Monica Torres

Two lab technicians at the facilities.

© Monica Torres

The Mohamed Embarek Fakal.la medicine production laboratory.
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