The women and the whole people from Western Sahara are crying these days because of the deth of one of the best saharawi embasssadors, the singer Mariem Hassan, who has died at the age of fifty seven in the afternoon of last saturday, August 22nd 2015, after a long struggle against breast cancer.
The famous artista, Mariem Hasan, has buried in the cemetery of the Smara Refugee Camp. Her funeral was attended by the Saharawi Prime Minister Mr. Abd-el-Kader Taleb Omar, in addition to civil and military cadres and artists.
She was a singer with a noble message, through which she struggled to spread the voice of the Sahrawi people who struggle for freedom and independence.
Mariem Hassan was born in 1958 in the Ued Tazua, 20 km. away from occupied Smara. In early 1976 she joined the musical group Shahid El Hafed Buyema, which. She travelled with the band to many countries, playing at cultural events, and recorded a few albums on different countries (Holland in 1980 [unreleased], France in 1989), with the help of local solidarity committees. The most known of those albums was “Polisario vencerá”, recorded in Spain in 1982.
She was the subject of a 2007 documentary film, “Mariem Hassan, la voz del Sáhara”.
She had performed at the WOMEX 2005 in Newcastle, and in several editions and locations of WOMAD festival, as WOMAD Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 2008, WOMAD Cáceres 2008, WOMAD Charlton Park 2009, WOMAD Sicily 2009, WOMADelaide 2010 and WOMAD New Zealand 2010.
In 2010, a new album was published. Shouka (The Thorn) represented a deep approach to the Haul and even the roots of Azawan music, but also with western influences.
In March 2011, she performed for three consecutive days in Caracas, Venezuela, during the "Sahrawi Cultural Week”. In late March 2012, her third solo album titled “El Aaiun Egdat” (El Aaiun on fire), inspired by the Sahrawi protests during and after the Gdeim Izik protest camp and the "Arab Spring", was published.
In October 2014, Calamar Edicion y Diseño published Hassan's official biography in the form of a graphic novel, Mariem Hassan – Soy Saharaui, written and illustrated by Italian authors Gianluca Diana, Andromalis, and Federica Marzioni.
