TLTP
RABAT
Morocco says its troops have launched an operation in a no man’s land on the southern border of Western Sahara to end “provocations” by the pro-independence Polisario Front.
Rabat on Friday said its troops would “put a stop to the blockade” of trucks travelling between Moroccan-controlled areas of the disputed territory and neighbouring Mauritania, and “restore free circulation of civilian and commercial traffic”.
Morocco says its troops have launched an operation in a no man’s land on the southern border of Western Sahara to end “provocations” by the pro-independence Polisario Front. Rabat on Friday said its troops would “put a stop to the blockade” of trucks travelling between Moroccan-controlled areas of the disputed territory and neighbouring Mauritania, and “restore free circulation of civilian and commercial traffic”.
The Polisario Front on Monday warned that it would regard a three-decade-old ceasefire with Morocco as over if Rabat moved troops or civilians into the buffer zone on the Mauritanian border.
“This will also mean the end of the ceasefire and the beginning of a new war across the region,” the Polisario Front said.
Guerguerat is located on the southern coast of the disputed Western Sahara, along the road leading to Mauritania, some 380km (235 miles) north of Nouakchott, a buffer zone patrolled by a United Nations’ peacekeeping force. “The Sahrawi government also holds the United Nations and the Security Council in particular responsible for the safety and security of Sahrawi civilians,” the Polisario statement added.
Last week, around 200 Moroccan truck drivers appealed to Moroccan and Mauritanian authorities for help, saying they were stranded on the Mauritanian side of the border near Guerguerat. In a statement carried by the Mauritanian news agency Alwiam, the produce truck drivers said they were returning from Mauritania and sub-Saharan Africa but “militias affiliated with separatists” had stopped them from crossing. In recent weeks, Moroccan media outlets said Sahrawi separatists had set up roadblocks and stopped passage across the border. The UN also cited isolated incidents at Guerguerat in a recent report.
