Portal:Western Sahara: Difference between revisions

Western Sahara is a disputed territoryinNorth-western Africa. It has a surface area of 272,000 square kilometres (105,000 sq mi). Approximately 30% of the territory (82,500 km² (31,900 sq mi)) is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco. It is the most sparsely-populated country in Africa and the second most sparsely-populated country in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at 618,600, of which nearly 40% live in Morocco-controlled Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara.

Previously occupied by Spain as Spanish Sahara until 1975, Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand. In 1965, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on Western Sahara, asking Spain to decolonize the territory. A year later, a resolution was passed requesting that a referendum be held by Spain on self-determination. In 1975, Spain relinquished administrative control of the territory to a joint administration by Morocco and Mauritania. A war erupted between those countries and a Sahrawi nationalist movement, the Polisario Front, which proclaimed itself the rightful leadership of the SADR with a government-in-exileinTindouf, Algeria. Mauritania withdrew its claims in 1979, and Morocco secured de facto control of most of the territory, including all major cities and most natural resources. The UN considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, and maintains the Sahrawis have a right to self-determination. Western Sahara is the last African colonial state yet to achieve independence and has been dubbed "Africa's last colony".

Since a UN-sponsored ceasefire agreement in 1991, most of the territory has been administered by the Moroccan government, with tacit support from France and the United States. The remainder is administered by the SADR, backed by Algeria. The only part of the coast in SADR territory is the extreme south. Internationally, countries such as Russia have taken an ambiguous and neutral position on each side's claims and pressed parties to agree on a peaceful resolution. Morocco and Polisario have sought to boost their claims by accumulating formal recognition, especially from African, Asian, and Latin American states in the developing world. The Polisario Front has won formal recognition for the SADR from 46 UN member states and South Ossetia, and was extended membership of the African Union. Morocco has won support from several African governments and most of the Muslim world and Arab League. In most instances, recognitions are extended or withdrawn due to a change in relations with Morocco. Until 2020, no other member state of the UN had ever recognized Moroccan sovereignty over parts of Western Sahara. In 2020, the US recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Moroccan normalization of relations with Israel. In 2023, Israel recognized Moroccan sovereignty. (Full article...)

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, also known as the Sahrawi Republic and Western Sahara, is a partially recognized state, recognized by 46 UN member states and South Ossetia, located in the western Maghreb, which claims the non-self-governing territoryofWestern Sahara, but controls only the easternmost one-fifth of that territory. Between 1884 and 1975, Western Sahara was known as Spanish Sahara, a Spanish colony (later an overseas province). The SADR is one of the two African states in which Spanish is a significant language, the other being Equatorial Guinea.

The SADR was proclaimed by the Polisario Front on 27 February 1976, in Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara. The SADR government calls the territories under its control the Liberated Territories or the Free Zone. Morocco controls and administers the rest of the disputed territory, and calls these lands its Southern Provinces. The claimed capital city of the SADR is El Aaiún (the capital of the territory of Western Sahara). Since the SADR does not control El Aaiún, it has established a temporary capitalinTifariti, although most of the day-to-day administration happens in Rabuni, one of the Sahrawi refugee camps located in Tindouf, Algeria. (Full article...)

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Map of the Western Sahara; the red line is the military military berm built by Morocco

The Western Sahara War (Arabic: حرب الصحراء الغربية, French: Guerre du Sahara occidental, Spanish: Guerra del Sáhara Occidental) was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco from 1975 to 1991 (and Mauritania from 1975 to 1979), being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords (signed under the pressure of the Green March), by which it transferred administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, but not sovereignty. In late 1975, the Moroccan government organized the Green March of some 350,000 Moroccan citizens, escorted by around 20,000 troops, who entered Western Sahara, trying to establish a Moroccan presence. While at first met with just minor resistance by the Polisario Front, Morocco later engaged a long period of guerrilla warfare with the Sahrawi nationalists. During the late 1970s, the Polisario Front, desiring to establish an independent state in the territory, attempted to fight both Mauritania and Morocco. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict after signing a peace treaty with the Polisario Front. The war continued in low intensity throughout the 1980s, though Morocco made several attempts to take the upper hand in 1989–1991. A cease-fire agreement was finally reached between the Polisario Front and Morocco in September 1991. Some sources put the final death toll between 10,000 and 20,000 people.

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Western Sahara

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  Image 1Remains of the former Spanish barracks in Tifariti after the Moroccan airstrikes in 1991 (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 2Museum of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 3Sahrawi human rights defender Ali Salem TamekinAit Meloul Prison, Morocco (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 4Sahrawi people (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 5A demonstration in Madrid for the independence of Western Sahara (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 6Commemoration of the 30th independence day from Spain in the Liberated Territories (2005) (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 7Asangar (fortification) from the Western Sahara conflict. The fortification is built of rocks on top of a mesa overlooking the Grart Chwchia, Al Gada, Western Sahara. The Sangar is facing north and was probably built by the Sahrawis in the 1980s. (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 8Intermittent lake Dait Um Saad (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 9Two women outside a hospital emergencies at a Sahrawi refugee camps (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 10Morocco built several empty towns in Western Sahara, ready for refugees returning from Tindouf. (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 11A Moroccan police checkpoint in the suburbs of Laayoune (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 12Sahrawi national police (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 13Western Sahara 1876 (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 14Topography of Western Sahara (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 15Western Sahara in Africa (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 16System of the Moroccan Walls in Western Sahara set up in the 1980s (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 17Natural products in a pharmacy (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 18A MINURSO car (left), and a post of the Polisario Front (right) in 2017 in southern Western Sahara (from Western Sahara)
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  Image 19Spanish and French protectorates in Morocco and Spanish Sahara, 1912 (from Western Sahara)

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