Shaheed El Hafed (Refugee Camps), 6 July 2025 (SPS) - Sahrawi organizations reported that a landmine exploded last Thursday in the Safia area, located in the occupied part of Western Sahara, about 80 kilometers from the Guerguerat area, resulting in injuries to three individuals of varying severity and the destruction of the four-wheel-drive vehicle they were in.
In a joint statement, the Sahrawi organizations (the Sahrawi Mine Action Coordination Office (SMACO), the Sahrawi Association of Mine Victims (ASAVIM), the Sahrawi Women's Team for Mine Action (SMAWT), and the Association of Friends of Charitable Work - Martyr Hazem) stated, "This tragic incident reaffirms the ongoing threat posed by landmines and war remnants in the occupied Sahrawi territories, in light of the Moroccan occupying state's refusal to sign the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines and its reluctance to allow any humanitarian or technical intervention to remove these indiscriminate weapons that threaten civilian lives daily."
While denouncing Morocco's continued planting of mines and its refusal to engage in relevant international agreements and treaties, the organizations hold the occupying state fully responsible, both legally and morally, for the lives of innocent civilians living under the constant threat of landmines.
They also demand that the international community, the United Nations, and relevant human rights and humanitarian security bodies "pressure Morocco to allow the removal of landmines from areas it occupies and to mark and identify contaminated areas to ensure the safety of the civilian population, as well as to provide medical and psychological support to mine victims and launch extensive awareness campaigns in threatened areas."
The organizations praised the tremendous efforts made by the Sahrawi government in collaboration with the United Nations and international partners in the field of mine clearance in liberated territories, despite limited resources.
It is noteworthy that Western Sahara is considered one of the most landmine- and war-remnant-contaminated areas in the world, with estimates of around 10 million landmines, thousands of cluster bombs, and remnants of war munitions scattered randomly in various areas to the north, south, east, and west, particularly along the Moroccan military wall, which is the longest continuous minefield in the world. These mines have resulted in more than 6,000 victims.
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