A Moroccan cluster bomblet protruded from the Sahara sands near where 10-year-old Saeed Mahmoud and his five-year-old brother, Hassan, were shepherding their goats. Stopping to rest awhile, the youngsters noticed the strange object glint in the fierce sunlight. They casually threw stones
at the shiny target, unaware of its true nature.
Saeed scored the first hit. The blast ruptured the heat-laden air and hurled the boys across the dunes like rag dolls. Hassan lay unconscious, bones and body broken. Blood seeped from Saeed's skull, forming pools that were absorbed by the sand.
'They should have died instantly,' says the boys' grandfather, Edhil Mohamed Saleh, with a mixture of sadness and pride. 'But they are Sahrawi; born and raised in the desert and made strong by the life we live here in the face of our oppressors.'
The boys' survival was in the balance, similar to that of their country, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), or Western Sahara as it is slightly better known in the English-speaking world - and its people.
More than three decades after having to flee their homeland, many Sahrawi continue to languish in exile, forgotten by almost everyone - one notable exception being Spanish movie star Javier Bardem, who is spearheading a campaign to restore peace and freedom to the Sahrawi.
'The situation in the refugee camps gets worse each year,' the Oscar winner said at the Sahara Film Festival last month. 'The peace process is blocked ... 200,000 former Spanish citizens have been abandoned in the desert for 33 years.'