In an exclusive broadcast, US-based independent news outlet Democracy Now! broke the media blockade and visited the occupied Western Sahara in the northwest of Africa to document the decades-long Sahrawi struggle for freedom and occupying power Morocco’s violent crackdown.
Morocco has occupied the territory since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. Thousands of Sahrawi people have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation. A 1700-mile wall divides Sahrawis who remain under occupation from those who fled into exile.
The international media has largely ignored the occupation—in part because Morocco has routinely blocked journalists from entering Western Sahara. But in late 2016, Democracy Now! managed to get into the Western Saharan city of Laayoune, becoming the first international news team to report from the occupied territory in years. You cn also read Green Left Weekly‘s reporting from Sahwari refugee camps and also from Morocco-occupied Laayoune here, here and here.
Democracy Now!‘s video report is below, followed by the transcript.
Origen: Occupied Western Sahara: A rare look inside Africa’s last colony | Green Left Weekly