Clashes as Moroccan forces dismantled a camp housing thousands of refugees in the Western Sahara on Monday left four dead and scores injured, according to the rival sides. Mohamed Ghalous, the government representative for Laayoune, said the dawn raid by paramilitary gendarmerie and auxiliary forces was intended "to end a situation which had exhausted all means of dialogue".
The security forces were ordered to empty a camp housing some 12,000 people set up four weeks ago outside Laayoune, the main town in the Western Sahara, in a protest against the deterioration of living standards. A gendarme and a fireman were killed during the raid, Ghalous said, adding that almost 70 people were injured. Clashes broke out in Laayoune itself on news of the assault on the camp.
"A policeman was stabbed to death in central Laayoune by demonstrators who also attacked banks and cafes," said a Moroccan government official, who added that "there were no deaths among the protestors in Laayoune." The Polisario Front movement, which seeks independence for the Western Sahara and has set up its own government for the territory, accused Morocco's security forces of killing a 26-year-old man and injuring hundreds of people.
The foreign minister in the self-appointed government, Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, said the attack "left hundreds of wounded. I can't yet tell you the exact figure (...), but the hospitals are full." The security forces raided the camp by ground and air, using helicopters, Salem Ould Salek told AFP in neighbouring Algeria, which is a host country for the Polisario Front and tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees.
Until Monday's raid, people in the Laayoune camp had set up a committee to liaise with Moroccan authorities and call for jobs and housing. The committee stated that it was making "an act of social protest", with no political slant. "Law enforcement officers arrived around dawn using high-powered water cannon to clear the camp and several ambulances were seen taking the injured to hospitals," said an AFP reporter on the scene.
"Hundreds of women and children were seen outside the camp heading towards Laayoune but a certain number of Sahrawi (local) men refused to go," said a witness. The road from Laayoune to the camp was blocked by police to prevent people from the town going to the camp to help protestors. "The camp is practically dispersed and the young people who refused to go were driven out by force following the intervention of the Moroccan authorities," a Laayoune resident who had returned from the camp told AFP.
Western Sahara was annexed by Morocco after Spanish settlers withdrew in 1975. But the Polisario Front fought the Moroccan presence until the United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991. Polisario minister Salem Ould Salek said the Moroccan forces had "repressed in a ferocious and undiscriminating fashion the defenceless civilians who found themselves in the camp."
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