At the heart of the conflict between Morocco and the Polisario Front over the territory of Western Sahara is the issue of the region’s wealth, the most important of which is phosphate, for which global demand has increased in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Morocco owns 70 percent of the world’s phosphate reserves, and one of the sources of its production is the Boukraa mine, which is located in the disputed Western Sahara between Rabat and the Polisario.
Boucraa is a desert city in the province of El-Ayoun, in the middle of the desert, in the southeast of El-Ayoun.
The Polisario Front accuses Morocco of exploiting the Medina mine without a legal right, and has previously called on international companies to refrain from buying phosphates extracted from Boucraa, from Morocco.
According to the Observatory for Monitoring the Resources of Western Sahara, Morocco extracts phosphate from the mine and transports it through the longest conveyor belt in the world, through the port of El-Ayoun, as a first step, 100 km to the west. From there, cargo ships transport the phosphate to importers abroad to produce fertilizer.
The mine was discovered in 1947. According to official Moroccan sources, the reserves of the Boukraa mine do not exceed 2% of the total national reserves. Boucraa has an annual production capacity of three million tons. However, this mine is regarding 100 km away from the city of El-Ayoun, in addition to the geographical difficulties associated with the peculiarities of the region. The cost of extraction in it is 2.5 percent more than the cost of extraction in the rest of the national mines in Morocco.
According to the Association for the Control of Wealth and Environmental Protection in Western Sahara, Morocco’s production from the mine amounted to “470,889 tons in 2022, compared to 220,000 tons during the first third of 2021.”
But the Polisario says the amount of production is greater than that. The Saharan Resource Monitor indicates that in recent years, exports of phosphate rocks from Boukraa amounted to regarding 10% of Morocco’s total exports of rocks. Annual production of Bu Kraa’ has ranged between 1 and 2 million tons in the past decade.
With the global lunch crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, phosphates have returned to the attention of food producers.The AtlanticThe conflict in Western Sahara might disrupt food production in the world.
move site”Conversation“In 2021, the global fertilizer market amounted to regarding $59 billion. In Morocco, the sector’s revenue for 2020 was regarding $5.94 billion.
Morocco plans to produce an additional 8.2 million tons of phosphorous fertilizers by 2026, in addition to its current production of regarding 12 million tons.
The Western Desert is located on the Atlantic coast, with an area of 266,000 square kilometers, rich in phosphates, and a coastline that extends over a thousand kilometers rich in fish.
Rabat, which controls nearly 80% of this region, is proposing an autonomy plan under its sovereignty, while the Algerian-backed Polisario Front is calling for a referendum for self-determination under the auspices of the United Nations.
