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It may be a dusty border truck stop at the southern tip of disputed Western Sahara, but locals call Guerguerat Morocco the “gateway to Africa.”
On the border with Mauritania, the remote outpost consists of three motels, three cafes, three grocery stores, two gas stations, and a hair salon.
“There is nothing else here,” says Aziz Boulidane, a Moroccan who runs one of the grocery stores.
Boulidane has set up tables outside his shop to serve coffee to truckers and travelers, while Moroccan customs officials check nearby heavy vehicles.
The border crossing in the rocky arid zone has become a source of friction.
Rabat launched a military operation on November 13 in a UN-patrolled buffer zone along the border after it said the pro-independence Polisario Front had been blocking the road for about three weeks.
The Polisario, which says the border highway was built in violation of a UN-sponsored ceasefire agreement in 1991, declared the truce null and void after the Moroccan intervention.
Western Sahara, a vast strip of desert on the Atlantic coast of Africa, is a disputed former Spanish colony.
Morocco controls about three-quarters of the territory, including its phosphate deposits and its fishing waters.
– ‘Gateway to Africa’ –
Rabat has extended a 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) defensive sand wall into the territory to secure the road to the border and has consolidated the last section of the route, little more than a sand track.
Moroccan Prime Minister Saad-Eddine El Othmani visited Guerguerat on Friday for the first time.
The military operation was carried out “in the interests of Africa, Morocco” and Europe, he said.
El Fekir Khattat, a local council official, proudly described the area as “Morocco’s gateway to Africa.”
“The border post has an important economic weight and generates considerable income,” he said.
The army’s intervention “will reinforce its economic attractiveness,” he said.
Khattat said he was counting on the construction of two industrial zones “to develop commercial activity” along the highway and create jobs in the sparsely populated area.
Rabat has already undertaken several large infrastructure projects in Western Sahara.
In 2017, the year Morocco officially rejoined the African Union, King Mohammed VI released some $ 8 billion for investments aimed at transforming the region into an “economic center.”
– ‘Strategic point’ –
But the Polisario Front says that the natural resources of its people in Western Sahara are being “looted.”
One of the projects, worth around $ 1 billion, was the development of the north-south highway “Nacional 1” that runs through the territory.
Another is to turn the port of Dakhla into a “regional maritime hub” to serve Morocco and West Africa, along with Spain’s Canary Islands.
Daouda Sene, manager of the Hotel Barbas in Bir Gandouz, 80 kilometers north of the border, is proud to work in “a strategic point on the international map.”
“All the Europeans and Africans who want to go to West Africa go through here,” said the 46-year-old Senegalese.
About 200 trucks travel the “National 1” route daily, along with the occasional wild camel.
He said that his hotel, the oldest in the Guerguerat region, houses people of all nationalities.
Malians, Senegalese, Ivorians, Mauritanians, Gambians and Moroccans come for business, he said, while tourism and fishing bring French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese visitors.
But businesses have been affected due to closures in response to the novel coronavirus and then to border tensions.
The Algerian-backed Polisario, which fought a war for independence from 1975 to 1991, is demanding a referendum on the self-determination of Western Sahara.
Morocco has offered autonomy but insists that it will maintain sovereignty over the territory.
by Hicham Rafih and Fadel Senna
