Portal:Western Sahara

The Western Sahara Portal – بوابة الصحراء الغربية

Coat of Arms of the Sahrawi Republic

Western Sahara is a United Nations–designated non-self-governing territory in north-western Africa. It has a surface area of 272,000 square kilometres (105,000 sq mi). Western Sahara is the last African colonial state yet to achieve independence and has been dubbed "Africa's last colony". With an estimated 600,000 inhabitants, it is the most sparsely populated territory in Africa and the second most sparsely populated territory in the world after Greenland, consisting mainly of desert flatlands.

Francoist Spain previously colonized the territory as the Spanish Sahara until 1975–1976. Spain attempted to transfer its administration to Morocco and Mauritania despite an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice that those countries had no sovereignty over Western Sahara; a war erupted and the pro-independence Polisario Front proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). 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 SADR established a government-in-exile in Tindouf, Algeria. A UN-sponsored ceasefire agreement was reached in 1991, though a planned referendum monitored by the UN's MINURSO mission has since stalled.

Approximately 30% of the Western Sahara is controlled by the Polisario Front and the remaining 70% is occupied by Morocco. Morocco maintains the Berm, a 2,700 km-long (1,700 mi) wall lined with land mines that splits the territory. The Polisario Front is recognized by the UN as the legitimate representative of the people of Western Sahara and is primarily supported by Algeria. The SADR has received partial international recognition and membership in the African Union. Morocco is supported by France and the United States; several states and the United Nations Security Council began expressing support for its autonomy proposal in the 2020s. (Full article...)

The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), also known as the Sahrawi Republic and Western Sahara, is a partially recognised state 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 recognised by 36 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 occupies the rest of the disputed territory, and calls these lands its Southern Provinces. The claimed capital city of the SADR is Laayoune (the largest city of the Western Sahara territory). Since the SADR does not control Laayoune, 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 history of Western Sahara can be traced back to the times of Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator in the 5th century BC. Though few historical records are left from that period, Western Sahara's modern history has its roots linked to some nomadic groups (living under Berber tribal rule and in contact with the Roman Empire) such as the Sanhaja group, and the introduction of Islam and the Arabic language at the end of the 8th century AD.

Western Sahara has never been a nation in the modern sense of the word. It was home to Phoenician colonies, but those disappeared with virtually no trace. Islam arrived there in the 8th century, but the region, beset with desertification, remained little developed. From the 11th to the 19th centuries, Western Sahara was one of the links between the sub-Saharan and North African regions. During the 11th century, the Sanhaja tribal confederation allied with the Lamtuna tribe to found the Almoravid dynasty. The conquests of the Almoravids extended over present-day Morocco, Western Algeria, and the Iberian Peninsula to the north and Mauritania and Mali to the south, reaching the Ghana Empire. By the 16th century, the Arab Saadi dynasty conquered the Songhai Empire based on the Niger River. Some Trans-Saharan trade routes also traversed Western Sahara. (Full article...)

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General images -

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

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