It is once once more civilian victims who remind us that a conflict continues in Western Sahara. Three Mauritanians died under fire on Monday (January 3) and four others were injured. These gold miners, active in northern Mauritania, had ventured into the buffer zone of Western Sahara.
→ REPORT. “Yet it is war”: in Western Sahara, the invisible conflict
They were, in all likelihood, the victims of a Moroccan drone fire. Since the resumption of hostilities in autumn 2020 between the royal army and the Saharawi forces, Morocco has significantly strengthened its control over this buffer zone long remained a gray zone beyond the authority of the States.
“Morocco observes absolute silence”
“But the information remains very limited, Morocco observes absolute silence on everything related to the clashes, as if they did not exist, including on the Moroccan dead”, notes Isaias Barrenada, professor of international relations at Complutense University in Madrid.
However, this is not the first time that such a blunder has occurred. Two Mauritanian gold miners were injured on November 5, 2021. Several incidents, during which gold miners had come under fire, had been reported during the winter of 2020-2021.
Already on November 1, three Algerians had also perished under the bombardments of their truck on a track crossing the territory of Western Sahara. The affair had caused a stir. Algiers had promised that this “Crime would not go unpunished”, while relations have never been so execrable between Algeria and Morocco which broke off their diplomatic relations.
The old Mauritania-Morocco dispute
Mauritania, on the other hand, does not officially pay much attention to its victims in its dispute with Morocco. “Nouakchott is a weak diplomatic player”, explain Isaiah Barrenada.
However, according to him, Mauritania takes a dim view of the fait accompli policy pursued by Morocco and its direct presence on its border. “The old argument never completely disappeared, he believes. At the time of independence, Morocco had claimed sovereignty over Mauritania, which it considered a colonial invention, then Mauritania recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic following withdrawing in 1979 from the conflict in Western Sahara. “
→ READ. Morocco’s offensive on Western Sahara
Mindful of this zone of tension at its gates, Mauritania installed three surveillance radars in Zouerate, as well as a command and surveillance center, near the border with Western Sahara, at the end of November, for surveillance purposes. air and land traffic and preservation of the country’s territorial integrity, then argued the Minister of Defense, Hanena Sidi.
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