Moroccan Walls in Western Sahara
In 1975, Spain completely withdrew from Spanish Morocco when Morocco annexed the northern two-thirds of the region, and Mauritania annexed the southern third. A local resistance group called the Polisario Front, backed by Algeria, challenged the claims Morocco and Mauritania were making and staged a guerilla war to fight for the independence of Western Sahara.
Mauritania withdrew in 1979, leaving Morocco to claim the entire territory. During the 1980s, Morocco constructed a series of sand and stone walls to restrict the Polisario Front to the eastern side of the territory, with a narrow strip to the south along the Mauritanian border. The map in Figure 7.18 shows the location of these walls and indicates when they were built
Figure 7.18 Moroccan Walls in Western Sahara
Source: Roke derivative work: M0tty, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Western_sahara_walls_moroccan_map-en.svg
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