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The Polisario Front said on Sunday it was mobilizing “thousands of volunteers” to join its fighters in disputed Western Sahara, as tensions with Morocco remain high.
Rabat launched a military operation on Friday to reopen a key highway on the border between the territory and Mauritania that it said was blocked by the Polisario Front, which seeks the independence of Western Sahara.
Moroccan and Mauritanian officials said on Saturday that cargo traffic had resumed along the highway, which is key for trade with the rest of Africa.
In response to the operation, the Polisario declared the end of a nearly three-decade UN-supervised ceasefire in Western Sahara.
“Thousands of volunteers who have completed their training are preparing to go to the militarized regions,” Mohamed Salem Ould Salek, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) declared by the Polisario, told AFP.
“Hundreds more people” are receiving training, he said, adding that “fighting is intensifying” in the extreme south of the territory, without providing further details.
The claims could not be independently verified.
Rabat controls about three-quarters of Western Sahara, a vast strip of desert on the Atlantic coast, including its phosphate deposits and lucrative ocean fisheries. The Polisario controls the rest.
Morocco maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of the kingdom and has offered autonomy for the disputed territory, but insists that it will maintain sovereignty.
The Polisario, which proclaimed independence in 1976, demands a referendum on self-determination as established in the 1991 ceasefire.
Voting has been repeatedly postponed due to disputes between Rabat and the Polisario over voter lists and the question the ballot would raise.
Without providing any details, the Polisario has in recent days reported attacks along the 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) long wall placed by Morocco in the 1980s in Western Sahara to prevent infiltration by Polisario fighters.
The Moroccan army said it had secured the Guerguerat border crossing by installing “a security cordon” along the wall.
Images released by the Moroccan army after Friday’s operation showed burning tents that had reportedly been used by the Polisario near the Mauritanian border.
