Portal:Western Sahara

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The Western Sahara Portal – بوابة الصحراء الغربية

Coat of Arms of the Sahrawi Republic

Western Sahara is a disputed territory in North-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. Nearly 40% of that population lives in Morocco-controlled Laayoune, the largest city of Western Sahara.

Previously occupied by Spain as the 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, resolution 2229 (XXI) was passed by the UN General Assembly 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-exile in Tindouf, 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 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, located in the western Maghreb, which claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, but controls only the easternmost one-fifth of that territory. It is recognized by 46 UN member states and South Ossetia. 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 capital in Tifariti, 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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The Free Zone or Liberated Territories (Arabic: المنطقة الحرة, romanized: al-minṭaqa al-ḥurra) is a term used by the Polisario Front government of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a partially recognized sovereign state in the western Maghreb, to describe the part of Western Sahara that lies to the east of a 2,200-kilometre (1,400 mi) border wall flanked by a minefield, often referred as the Berm, and to the west and north of the borders with Algeria and Mauritania, respectively. It is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as opposed to the area to the west of the Berm, which is controlled by Morocco as part of its Southern Provinces. Both states claim the entirety of Western Sahara as their territory.

The zone was consolidated as a Polisario-held zone in a 1991 cease-fire between the Polisario Front and Morocco, which had been agreed upon together as part of the Settlement Plan. Morocco controls the areas west of the Berm, including most of the territory's population. The cease-fire is overseen by the United Nations' MINURSO forces, charged with peacekeeping in the area and the organization of a referendum on independence. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Western Sahara-related articles on Wikipedia.

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