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La Realidad Saharaui newspaper / DLRS, Saturday 11/01/2020. Saharawi activist photos
The Saharawi border crossing El Guerguerat, Western Sahara, liberated territories, is closed by the initiative of Saharawi organizations in rejection of the Africa Eco Race rally.
A group of Sahrawi citizens closed since yesterday the passage between the borders of Western Sahara and Mauritania to prevent the passage of the so-called “Afria Eco Race” rally that has ignored the warnings of the Polisario Front and the Saharawi Republic for the third year ona row. Newspaper “The Saharawi Reality” has contacted Sahrawi activists, who indicated that it is an initiative that emerged from the Saharawi Community in Mauritania, the Sahrawi refugee camps and the occupied territories. “This time it will not happen, despite everything!”, said the source.
Faced with this situation, the United Nations sent vehicles from the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) yesterday to find out about the situation. MINURSO officials have been able to talk with the organizers of the initiative, who handed them a letter of condemnation and rejection against the passage of the Africa Eco Race, warning them of the consequences and assuming their responsibilities when violating a territory that is in a conflict situation and with the presence of the United Nations. The Saharawis raised tents, raised the flags of the Saharawi Republic and cut off the path to the borders of Mauritania.
The organizers of the rally are former participants of the Paris Dakar Rally of French nationality. They are poorly informed about the reality of the territory and the conflict caused by the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara territories since 1976. Sahrawi militants in the occupied city El Aaiún have told DLRS that such initiatives should be encouraged. This type of action is supported by the Saharawi from the occupied territories within the diversity of the fight against the Moroccan occupation and the inoperance of the United Nations.
The Rally has been in the occupied Saharawi city of Dakhla since yesterday, in a stage of two days of rest and had planned to pass through the region of El Guerguerat on Sunday, ignoring the warnings of the Saharawis. That is when they are going to meet with the closing of the passage and another reality different from that sold by the Moroccan occupation administration.
“It is time to respond to the world to the French, the Spaniards and the UN that it is enough, no more trample of our rights and abuse of our patience.” This is how blunt a Saharawi militant from El Aaiun with whom DLRS has contacted speaks. And he asserts: “They are forcing us to take strong initiatives and diversify our struggle. They believed that we no longer exist, even the French are already doing business directly in our occupied territory, regardless of the conflict and suffering of the Saharawi population. The Polisario Front must act and not let the UN and France,trample on us “concluded the Saharawi activist.
The Polisario Front sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, last Tuesday, in which it reported on the violation that the Rally Africa Eco Race is inflicting for the third consecutive year and warned the organizers of the consequences. The organizers received on their website the Saharawi communiqué and requests from various personalities and organizations to prevent their passage through the Saharawi territory without authorization from the Polisario Front and the Saharawi government.
This new pulse in the conflict has led the Saharawi Representative to the UN, Dr. Sidi Mohamed Omar, to meet yesterday Friday at the UN headquarters in New York with the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs and Peacebuilding to address the issue of this new crisis caused by Morocco and the Africa Eco Race Rally.