Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SAFE TRAVEL IN THE WESTERN SAHARA
Given the ongoing tensions in the Western Sahara, travelling to the region is inadvisable. If you need
to cross the area to reach Mauritania, it is recommended that you avoid Laâyoune in particular; the
city was the focus of the violent clashes in November 2010 and remains volatile. While there is the
obvious danger of being caught in a riot or a confrontation between Moroccans and Saharawis, deal-
ing with the Moroccan authorities at the numerous roadblocks actually poses more risks.
In engineering a media blackout, the Moroccans are determined to keep journalists from the region.
Following the violent raid of the Gadaym Izik camp near Laâyoune in 2010, reporters were prevented
from boarding planes to Laâyoune, and Spanish journalists who reached the city were detained and
deported. Spain has been most critical of Morocco's occupation, so Spanish travellers are likely to
field most questions from Moroccan officials.
However, everyone should treat the checkpoint stops seriously, tedious though they are, as there is a
small risk of travellers being taken for a journalist or Polisario sympathiser. Even as you approach the
Western Sahara, entering and travelling between towns such as Tarfaya, Tan Tan, Goulimime and
Tata, foreigners are invariably asked about their profession, next destination and purpose in the region.
Sometimes these questions will quickly dissolve into enquiries about your soccer allegiances, and you
will be waved on. In the Western Sahara, your passport and visa details will be noted down, along
with your vehicle details if you are driving. If you're on a bus, often you can stay in your seat while
the police take your ID and write down your particulars; sometimes you will be summoned to speak to
a head honcho in a hut.
Occupations that are likely to ring alarm bells at police posts are journalism or working in aid. If
police confirm that you work in an occupation of that nature, you could be followed, detained, sent
back to Morocco proper or even deported to a nearby location such as the Canary Islands. The author-
ities are generally more wary of travellers visiting Laâyoune than Dakhla or Tarfaya.
Once in Laâyoune and Dakhla you will be aware of the military and police, both of which are sens-
itive to photography around military installations. Similarly, they will not take too kindly to you pho-
tographing or trying to visit the refugee camps around both cities, where many Saharawis still live.
History
Despite its windswept desolation, the Western Sahara has a long and violent history.
Islamic missionaries started to spread Islam among the Zenata and Sanhaja Berber tribes
here in the 7th century. A second wave of Arab settlers, the Maqil from Yemen, migrated
to the desert in the 13th century, and the whole region became predominantly Arabic.
In the 19th century, the Spanish grabbed the Western Sahara and renamed it Rio de Oro.
In reality, Sheikh Ma El-Ainin and his son El-Hiba controlled the desert and the nomadic
tribes well into the 20th century. From the 1930s, an uneasy colonial peace prevailed until
Moroccan independence in the late 1950s, when new nationalist fervour saw the genesis
of the Polisario Front and a guerrilla war against the Spanish.
