The Polisario Front warns against including the Sahrawi territories in the 2023 World Cup

2023-10-09 19:37:34

He Polisario Front has warned of “serious consequences” if the Saharawi territories occupied byr Morocco in the 2030 World Cup, which the Maghreb country will host along with Spain and Portugal.

“It will be a disastrous act with serious consequences for peace and security in the region, especially in light of the current state of war that the region is experiencing,” in reference to the rupture of the ceasefire between the parties since November 2020, said the secretary general of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali.

“Normalize the occupation”

Ghali has sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, in which he has condemned the acts with which Morocco “wants to impose the accomplished facts by force in the occupied Sahrawi territories” with the intention of “normalizing” and “legitimizing the illegal occupation” of his country, which the UN considers as “territory pending decolonization.”

On the other hand, Ghali has asked the organizing countries “to comply with their obligations and refrain from undertaking any action or any form of assistance to the Moroccan occupying State that could lead to the consolidation of a illegal situation in the territory of Western Sahara”.

The former Spanish colony of Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975 despite the resistance of the Polisario Front, with whom it remained at war until 1991, when both parties signed a ceasefire with a view to holding a self-determination referendum.

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But differences over the preparation of the census and the inclusion or not of Moroccan settlers have prevented it from being called so far. Furthermore, after a Moroccan military action against Sahrawi activists in Guerguerat, on November 14, 2020, the Polisario considered the ceasefire broken.

The Sahrawis suffered a setback when the Spanish Government supported the Moroccan autonomy plan, a change in position that was described as betrayal by the Polisario Front and that also sparked criticism from Algeria.