Morocco Completes Defense Wall in Western Sahara Buffer Zone

In an interview with Reuters, he reaffirmed Morocco’s commitment to the 1991 ceasefire. According to him, there had only been "skirmishes and sporadic fighting" in recent days. He was referring to the military intervention of the Royal Armed Forces in the Guerguerat buffer zone.

The Polisario, protected by Algeria, claims to have repeatedly thwarted Morocco’s interventions on the sand wall. This is a wall that the kingdom had built in the 1980s along a large part of the border crossing the desert over hundreds of kilometers. Mr. El Othmani said that this defense wall now extends to the Mauritanian border "in order to secure once and for all the civil and commercial traffic in Guerguerat between Morocco and Mauritania".

On the instructions of King Mohammed VI, the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) had deployed a security cordon in the buffer zone on Friday, November 13, to secure the flow of goods and people. Morocco had been forced to carry out this operation due to the actions of the Polisario militiamen. In the wake of this, the movement accused the kingdom of having violated the 1991 ceasefire and declared that the war had begun.

"So far, there is nothing to fear along the security wall and in the Moroccan Sahara in general," reassured the Moroccan government chief. For its part, MINURSO "continues to receive reports of gunfire fired during the night in various locations," said UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric on Tuesday.