Western Sahara: the Polisario leader out of "danger"

The leader of the separatists of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, hospitalized in Spain after contracting the coronavirus, is "recovering" and "far from any danger", a senior Sahrawi official told AFP on Sunday.

said the senior official who requested anonymity, adding that he "was recovering well and that his condition was developing positively".

The hospitalization in April in an establishment in Logroño (northern Spain) of the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR, self-proclaimed) caused a diplomatic crisis between Morocco and Spain, followed this week by a migration crisis with an unprecedented influx of thousands of Moroccan migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

At the origin of a migration crisis

Morocco, in conflict with the Polisario Front in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara for decades, has called for a "transparent" investigation into the "fraudulent" entry of Mr. Ghali into Spain.

On Friday, sources from the Spanish Foreign Ministry told the Europa Press agency that Mr. Ghali had not arrived in Spain with a false passport and claimed that he had traveled with his passport which fulfills "the requirements. ordinary ”.

Aged 75, Brahim Ghali was elected on July 9, 2016 at the head of the SADR and the Polisario, which fights for the independence of this vast desert territory.

The Sahrawi separatists took up arms again last November in response to a Moroccan military operation in a buffer zone at the far end of the territory.

Western Sahara is considered a “non-self-governing territory” by the UN in the absence of a final settlement of the issue of its status. The Polisario is calling for a self-determination referendum planned by the UN, while Morocco, which controls more than two-thirds of the territory, proposes an autonomy plan under its sovereignty.