West-Sahara

Spain’s justice reopened a case for crimes against humanity targeting Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali who has been hospitalized since April 2021 in a facility in Logrono in northern Spain after entering the country with a forged identity.

Morocco’s reported use of a drone strike to kill a senior Western Sahara independence fighter would, if confirmed, mark a turning point in the decades-long conflict, experts say.

Clashes have broken out in Western Sahara, ending a 30-year ceasefire between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front. Fighting could intensify absent outside help. The UN should fill its empty special envoy post, while the U.S. leads international efforts to restart diplomacy.

Spain is pushing for a U.N.-brokered solution to the long-running dispute over its former colony, Western Sahara, after a dispute erupted between Morocco and Germany over the territory. The dispute between Morocco and Germany started earlier this month after Berlin criticized a decision last year by then-U.S. President Donald Trump to recognize Rabat’s claim to sovereignty over the desert region.

Generations of young Sahrawis have grown up in Algeria's remote desert refugee camps largely forgotten by the outside world and now see no prospect of an independent homeland in Western Sahara except through a new war their leaders say has already begun.

Western Sahara’s pro-independence Polisario Front has bombarded the Guerguerat buffer zone under Moroccan control in the far south of the desert territory in an attack Rabat described as part of a “propaganda war”.

The United States on Sunday started the process of establishing a consulate in contested Western Sahara, after Washington recognized Morocco's sovereignty there in exchange for Rabat normalizing ties with Israel. … U.N. peacekeepers in Western Sahara are mandated to organize a referendum on self-determination for the region and despite Washington's move, the U.N. insists its position is unchanged.

Morocco’s decision to normalise ties with Israel has handed Rabat its biggest step yet towards the prize it values most - global recognition of its claim to Western Sahara.

Armed clashes between Morocco and the Polisario Front reflect the movement’s frustration with a three-decade status quo that has frozen its dreams of independence in the Western Sahara, analysts say. The group, backed by Morocco’s arch-rival Algeria, has long demanded a referendum on independence in the territory as provided for by a 1991 UN Security Council resolution.

The UN chief has expressed “grave concern” at the possible consequences which could arise from an operation reportedly launched by the Moroccan Government on the southern border of Western Sahara, in response to a reported highway blockade by supporters of the pro-independence Frente POLISARIO. In recent days, the UN has been involved in multiple initiatives to avoid an escalation of the situation in Western Sahara’s Buffer Strip in the Guerguerat area, the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General said in a statement issued on Friday.