The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el‑Hamra and Rio de Oro ((POLISARIO Front) has vowed to continue attacking Moroccan positions in Western Sahara despite a United Nations (UN) call for a ceasefire.
Speaking at a news conference, the leader of the POLISARIO Front, Brahim Ghali, said unless a UN-appointed envoy is given a clear mandate to deliver on a self-determination vote, the group’s hostilities against Morocco will not end.
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, had urged all parties involved to urgently resume the political process for the non-self-governing territory.
He made the call in his 2021 Report of the Secretary General on the Situation of Western Sahara.
Western Sahara is a disputed territory in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa controlled by two governmental authorities.
About 20 percent of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, while the remaining 80 percent is occupied and administered by neighbouring Morocco.
The UN considers Western Sahara a non-self-governing territory in the absence of a final settlement.
Guterres also called on Morocco and Algeria to mend relations in support of regional cooperation, peace and security.
Recent tensions over the disputed region have led to severing of diplomatic ties between Algeria and Morocco. Algeria has been hosting Sahrawi population in refugee camps since 1975.
‘The resumption of hostilities between Morocco and Frente POLISARIO is a major setback to the achievement of a political solution to this longstanding dispute’, the report quoted the UN chief as saying.
‘Since then, daily incursions into this zone and hostilities between the parties have significantly undermined the arrangements that have been the basis for a ceasefire for the past 30 years’.
Sources: Africanews, MINURSO
Photo source: David Stanley
