(19 Jun 2021) Thousands attended a demonstration in Madrid Saturday to demand Spain and Morocco respect self-determination for the Western Sahara.
The rally came at the end of a march from different corners of Spain to support the autonomy of the self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
Morocco annexed the area in the 1970s after Spain's colonial administration ended.
It considers the vast territory part and parcel of the Moroccan kingdom.
Protester Mazah Kulti, who left her father behind in Western Sahara when she was two years old, accused Morocco of "illegally occupying, looting in a abusive way our resources and coercing the population."
Meanwhile fellow protester Minechu Embarek explained they were attending the demonstration as "who doesn't have a land, doesn't have anything".
Spain, like most other Western countries, has urged a negotiated solution through the United Nations to the question of Western Sahara's future.
But the issue became clouded last December when the US Trump administration formally recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara in return for Rabat's normalization of ties with Israel.
Tensions have risen betwen Madrid and Rabat after Brahim Ghali, the leader of the self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, secretly entered Spain in April.
The 71-year-old spent six weeks in hospital after contracting COVID-19, according to a statement from the independence movement.
Morroco said at the end of May that the diplomatic rift was "about trust and mutual respect, which has been broken".
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