The Algeria–Western Sahara border is 41 kilometres (25 mi) in length and runs from the tripoint with Morocco in the north to the tripoint with Mauritania in the south.[1][2]
Description
The border consists of relatively short north–south straight line running through the
Sahara desert
connecting the Moroccan and Mauritanian tripoints.
On 27 June 1900 France and Spain signed a treaty which created a border between Rio de Oro and
Spanish Morocco), the exclave of Ifni and the Cape Juby/Tarfaya Strip (aka the 'Southern Zone'), the latter forming what is now the far south of Morocco proper, between the Draa River and the Saguia el-Hamra border at 27°40'N agreed upon in 1904.[4][3] The entire French West Africa/French Algeria-Saguia el Hamara/Rio de Oro boundary was confirmed by treaty on 19 December 1956, with France and Spain then demarcating it on the ground in 1957 with several pillars.[4]
From 1946 to 1958 Spanish Morocco, the Tarfaya Strip, Ifni, Rio de Oro and Saguia el Hamra were united as
Polisario, seeking independence for the whole of Spanish Sahara as Western Sahara, and began a low-level guerrilla campaign. An International Court of Justiceruling on the matter in October 1975 stated that neither the Moroccan nor Mauritanian claims to Western Sahara were strong enough to justify annexation, and that the Saharawi people should be allowed to determine their own future.[7][3] Morocco thereafter sought to settle the matter military, and in November 1975 conducted the 'Green March', in which thousands of soldiers and Moroccan nationalists forcibly crossed the Morocco-Spanish Sahara border. Spain's dictator Francisco Franco was at this time near-death, and the country was unwilling to respond militarily at such a delicate time, keen to avoid the kind of drawn-out colonial war that had bedevilled Portugal in its African colonies. Spain therefore signed a treaty with Morocco and Mauritania, splitting Spanish Sahara roughly in two, roughly two-thirds in Morocco's favour.[3] Morocco thereafter absorbed their section into Morocco and the Algeria–Western Sahara border effectively became a continuation of the Algeria–Morocco border. Polisario forces declared a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic based on the boundaries of Spanish Sahara, thus starting a long war against Morocco and Mauritania. Unwilling to continue the conflict, Mauritania pulled out of their zone in 1979, which was then annexed by Morocco. Algeria opposed the annexation and provided shelter for the Polisario Saharawi nationalist militia and Saharawi refugees on its territory, most notably around the town of Tindouf.[8]
In the 1980s, in an effort to control the territory and stymie the Polisario, Morocco began building a number of elaborate walls (or 'berms'), eventually completing the Moroccan Western Sahara Wall in 1987.[9] Morocco and Polisario signed a ceasefire agreement in 1991 ending the war; Morocco retained control of areas west of the wall (roughly 80% of Western Sahara), with Polisario controlling those east, including the border with Algeria. At present the dispute remains unresolved.
^ abcdefghiBrownlie, Ian (1979). African Boundaries: A Legal and Diplomatic Encyclopedia. Institute for International Affairs, Hurst and Co. pp. 98–101.
