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Tifariti (liberated territories), 20/12/2007 (SPS) the city of Tifariti, which just hosted the meetings of the XIIth of POLISARIO Front, is considered by Saharawis as a symbol of resistance against the Moroccan colonisers who invaded and militarily occupied the territory since October 1975.
Two months after the invasion of the territory, the citizens who run out of their cities because of Moroccan troops, would have to live a different life from then on. Tifariti would experience that 1st January 1976 a first contact with intense Moroccan air forces’ attacks. Hundreds of women and children were mutilated for the rest of their lives, while tens others died.
The same year, in February, Moroccan tanks surrounded the city from the east and west while it was defended only by a unit of Saharawi combatant. Moroccan troops (FAR) then occupied the region for two months before been withdrawn by Saharawi Popular Liberation Army (ALPS).
FAR would strongly return during the summer of 1977 to settle in the region for less than two years. The decisive battle of Tifariti would take place in Mars 1979, FAR would loose hundreds of deads soldiers and other hundreds injured and would evacuate hastily abandoning the biggest part of their weapons and military engines to Saharawi fighters.
Even before Moroccan invasion, Tifariti seems to be vouched for resistance. In Mars 1912, the French expedition, that attempted to establish the links with its troops in Morocco, under the commandment of Captain Gerard, was exterminated in ‘’Gleib Akhchah’’, renamed for the circumstances ‘’Gleib Chouhada’’ (Martyrs Mountain). (SPS)
010/TFR/000 201709 DEC 07 SPS
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