The militants also set fire to their tents.
Rabat – A group of Polisario militants fled Guerguerat, a town near the Moroccan-Mauritanian border on Friday morning
The escape came amid the intervention of Morocco’s armed forces to secure commercial and civil traffic in the region.
The Royal Armed Forces (FAR) issued a press release this morning saying that it mobilized troops to secure the flow of goods and civilians in the region late Thursday night.
FAR assured that the intervention in Guerguerat is a non-offensive act and “without any bellicose intent.”
Polisario, however, attempted to further escalate the situation with a maneuver against Morocco’s defense wall in Mahbes, near Algeria.
Morocco’s government neutralized Polisario’s maneuvers through anti-tank means, a source told Le360 earlier today.
Morocco’s government denounced Polisario’s hostile acts, saying that the violations undermine the UN-led political process and efforts to end the conflict over Western Sahara.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Poliario has repeated its provocative acts in Guerguerat since 2016 in violation of military agreements.
Before fleeing Guerguerat amid Morocco’s intervention, Polisario set fire to the tents where its militia was camping during the weeks of increasingly provocative moves.
Photos now viral online show smoke billowing out of the tents. The Polisario Front, however, left six tents intact, documenting its maneuvers.
Reports confirmed that Morocco’s intervention came under the supervision of MINURSO, the UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara, reflecting the legitimacy of Morocco’s peaceful move to ensure the unobscured traffic of goods and civilians in the region.
Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Polisario Front solely bears full responsibility for the consequences of its illegal maneuvers in the buffer zone.
The Moroccan government also denounced the refusal of Polisario to comply with orders to leave the region.
“Appeals from Minurso and the UN Secretary-General, as well as the intervention of several members of the Security Council, have unfortunately been unsuccessful,” the ministry said.
