Western Sahara is the territory in north-west Africa bordered by Morocco in the north, Algeria and Mauritania in the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. A former Spanish colony, it’s listed by the United Nations as one of only 17 territories that remain without self-government.
Since becoming independent from France in 1956, Morocco has been claiming sovereignty over Western Sahara. In the late 1970s, the kingdom formally annexed around 80% of Western Sahara, over which it exercises de facto control. This followed the so-called “Green March” of 6 November 1975 in which between 100,000 and 350,000 Moroccans resettled in Western Sahara to
