Polisario Military Chief Seeks Medical Treatment in Spain, Morocco Remains Silent

Mohamed El Ouali Akeik, 73, is in the Basque Country to undergo an examination and have cataract surgery. The news of his stay on Spanish soil was revealed on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday by the Polisario delegation in Spain, reports El Confidencial, noting that the Moncloa and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs have not reacted to this information.

This trip by the senior Sahrawi military leader will not cause tensions between Morocco and Spain, as was the case with Brahim Ghali in April 2021. The Polisario leader had been admitted, under a false identity, to the San Pedro de Logroño hospital due to Covid-19 complications. The Spanish government had failed to inform the Moroccan authorities of this, which led to an unprecedented crisis between the two countries, which ended in March 2022 after Spain’s support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Sahara.

This time, the Spanish government has likely informed Rabat of the arrival of Mohamed El Ouali Akeik who, like Ghali, was born in Laâyoune and has Spanish nationality. The senior officer is considered the "number two" of the Polisario. Before his current functions, which he has held for three years, he had been prime minister and minister of the "occupied territories" of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

Before the crisis caused by Ghali’s arrival, several Sahrawi personalities came to Spain for medical treatment. For example, Ahmed Boukhari, the Polisario’s representative to the United Nations, died in 2018 at the Cruces hospital in Biscay. Two years later, Mohamed Khaddad, in charge of international relations for the Sahrawi movement, died in a Madrid hospital.