The Western Sahara War (Arabic: حرب الصحراء الغربية, French: Guerre du Sahara occidental, Spanish: Guerra del Sahara Occidental) was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi indigenous Polisario Front and Morocco from 1975 to 1991 (and Mauritania from 1975 to 1979), being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords (signed under the pressure of the Green March), by which it transferred administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, but not sovereignty. In late 1975, the Moroccan government organized the Green March of some 350,000 Moroccan citizens, escorted by around 20,000 troops, who entered Western Sahara, trying to establish a Moroccan presence.[22] While at first met with just minor resistance by the Polisario Front, Morocco later engaged a long period of guerrilla warfare with the Sahrawi nationalists. During the late 1970s, the Polisario Front, desiring to establish an independent state in the territory, attempted to fight both Mauritania and Morocco. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict after signing a peace treaty with the Polisario Front.[23] The war continued in low intensity throughout the 1980s, though Morocco made several attempts to take the upper hand in 1989–1991. A cease-fire agreement was finally reached between the Polisario Front and Morocco in September 1991. Some sources put the final death toll between 10,000 and 20,000 people.[21]
The conflict has since shifted from military to civilian resistance. A peace process, attempting to resolve the conflict has not yet produced any permanent solution to Sahrawi refugees and territorial agreement between Morocco and the Sahrawi Republic. Today most of the territory of Western Sahara is under Moroccan occupation, while the inland parts are governed by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, managed by the Polisario Front.[24]
^"Argelia acusa la derrota de Angola". ABC (in Spanish): 41. 1976-02-07. Retrieved 2012-07-24.
^Anouar Boukhars; Jacques Roussellier (18 December 2013). Perspectives on Western Sahara: Myths, Nationalisms, and Geopolitics. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-4422-2686-9.
^Véronique Dudouet (15 September 2014). Civil Resistance and Conflict Transformation: Transitions from armed to nonviolent struggle. Routledge. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-317-69778-7.
^Ho-Won Jeong (4 December 2009). Conflict Management and Resolution: An Introduction. Routledge. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-135-26511-3.
^ abPaul, Jim; Paul, Susanne; Salek, Mohamed Salem Ould; Ali, Hadssan; Hultman, Tami (1976). "With the Polisario Front of Sahara". MERIP Reports (53). MERIP reports, JSTOR: 16–21. doi:10.2307/3011206. JSTOR 3011206.
^ ab"Multinational Monitor, November 1980". multinationalmonitor.org.
^ abLewis, Paul (1988-08-31). "Sahara foes move to end their war". NY Times. Retrieved 2010-08-13.
^"Keeping it secret – the United Nations operation in Western Sahara". Human Rights Watch. October 1995. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
^ ab"Marruecos incrementa su presencia en Mauritania" (in Spanish). El País. 1977-07-21. Retrieved 2010-11-09.
^Jose Ramón Diego Aguirre, Guerra en el Sáhara, Istmo, Colección Fundamentos, Vol. 124, 1991, Page 193
^"North Africa: Shadow war in the Sahara". Time. 1977-01-03. Archived from the original on December 15, 2008. Retrieved 2010-08-13.
^"Western Sahara, the facts". New Internationalist Issue 297. 1997-12-05. Retrieved 2010-10-01.
^"El misterio de la guerra del Sáhara" (in Spanish). El País. September 10, 2006. Retrieved August 6, 2010.
^J. David Singer, & Melvin Small (1982). Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816–1980. Beverly Hills: Sage publications inc. ISBN 978-0-8039-1777-4.
^Leger Sivard, Ruth (1987). World Military and Social Expenditures 12th ed. (1987–88). Washington D.C.: World priorities. ISBN 978-0-918281-05-0. War statistics table by William G. Eckhardt.
^Cite error: The named reference Polar3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Project Disappeared: Western Sahara". www.desaparecidos.org.
^Solá-Martín, Andreu (2007). The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara. Lewinston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press. p. 102.
^Asistencia en favor de las víctimas saharauis. Revista Internacional de la Cruz Roja, 1, pp 83–83 (1976) (in Spanish)
^"Open Society Foundations" (PDF). Open Society Foundations. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-28. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
^ abEKSKLUZIVNO ZA LUPIGU: Podupiremo mirno rješenje, ali zadržavamo mogućnost da i silom oslobodimo našu zemlju Lupiga.com, 2 March 2013 (in Croatian)
^Cite error: The named reference spectrezine was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Retrait de la Mauritanie du Sahara occidental | Evenements | Perspective Monde". perspective.usherbrooke.ca. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
^"Western Sahara profile". BBC News. 2011-07-11. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
and 26 Related for: Western Sahara War information
The WesternSaharaWar (Arabic: حرب الصحراء الغربية, French: Guerre du Sahara occidental, Spanish: Guerra del Sahara Occidental) was an armed struggle...
WesternSahara is a disputed territory on the northwest coast of Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic...
against Spanish colonial forces from 1973 to 1975 and the subsequent WesternSaharaWar against Morocco between 1975 and 1991. Today the conflict is dominated...
The Moroccan WesternSahara Wall or the Berm, also called the Moroccan sand wall (Arabic: الجدار الرملي المغربي في الصحراء الغربية, lit. 'Moroccan sand...
to 1958, then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used for the modern territory of WesternSahara when it was occupied and ruled...
The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on WesternSahara was a 1975 advisory, non-binding opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)...
WesternSahara, formerly the Spanish colony of Spanish Sahara, is a disputed territory claimed by both the Kingdom of Morocco and the Popular Front for...
The annexation of WesternSahara occurred in two stages: 1976 and 1979. Shortly after Spain gave up control over Spanish Sahara in 1975, both Mauritania...
The politics of WesternSahara take place in a framework of an area claimed by both the partially recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and the Kingdom...
The WesternSahara Autonomy Proposal is an initiative proposed by Morocco in 2006 as a possible solution to the WesternSahara conflict. In 2006, the Moroccan...
The flag of WesternSahara (Arabic: علم الصحراء الغربية, Spanish: Bandera del Sáhara Occidental), also known as the flag of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic...
The history of WesternSahara can be traced back to the times of Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator in the 5th century BC. Though few historical...
All data about demographic information regarding WesternSahara are extremely error-prone, regardless of source. Most countries take censuses every ten...
Republic and WesternSahara, is a partially recognized state, recognized by 46 UN member states and South Ossetia, located in the western Maghreb, which...
Provinces or Moroccan Sahara are the terms utilized by the Moroccan government to refer to the occupied territory of WesternSahara. These designations...
and WesternSahara was partitioned between Morocco and Mauritania. Santamaría, Ramiro. Ifni-Sahara, la guerra ignorada ("Ifni-Sahara, the Ignored War")...
the southeastern corner of WesternSahara for a short distance. Transit through WesternSahara was disrupted during the war between Polisaro and Moroccan...
The WesternSahara peace process refers to the international efforts to resolve the WesternSahara conflict. The conflict has failed so far to result in...
return, replacing them with two EAF MiG-21MFs. At the beginning of the WesternSaharaWar, Fouga Magisters (based at Laayoune) and North American T-6 Texans...
The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in WesternSahara (Arabic: بعثة الأمم المتحدة لتنظيم استفتاء في الصحراء الغربية; French: Mission des Nations...
operation was over. During the 16-year-long conflict on the territory of WesternSahara, the Royal Moroccan Army (RMA) dropped cluster bombs. The RMA used both...
The Polisario Front waged a war to drive out the two armies. It forced Mauritania to relinquish its claim over WesternSahara in 1979 and continued its...
acquired two full batteries of 2K12 Kub missiles from Algeria during the WesternSaharaWar, which they used effectively against the fighters of the Royal Moroccan...
The Government of Morocco sees WesternSahara as its Southern Provinces. The Moroccan government considers the Polisario Front as a separatist movement...
Civil War October 23, 1957 – June 30, 1958 Ifni War 1970–ongoing WesternSahara conflict October 30, 1975 – September 6, 1991 WesternSaharaWar 1801–1807...
The WesternSahara national football team (Arabic: منتخب الصحراء الغربية لكرة القدم, Spanish: Selección de fútbol del Sahara Occidental) represents Western...