Dakhla is actually pretty tourist-friendly, and spending time there will quickly do away with the notion that nobody lives in Western Sahara. It's well-known for kiteboarding and windsurfing, since it's got pretty consistent wind and surf and a hot-comfortably dry climate. Pretty heavy police presence and you're supporting Moroccan arguable-occupation by heading there, though, so it's a tradeoff.
Dakhla and environs is also known for hundreds of elderly French, Italians, and Germans who spend winters down there in their camping cars. This was already a very developed scene when I first visited Western Sahara in 2007.
A series of enormous sand walls separate the morocco-occupied region from the sahrawi controlled region. These are one of the largest minefields in the world.
It's impressive to look at satellite images of this. Just a huge sand wall, with hundreds and hundreds of military outposts.
In spite of the craziness of the Berm, the vast majority of foreign travelers passing through have never heard of it. It is out of sight of the Moroccan highway, and obviously something locals won't be talking about.
A couple of misconceptions about Western Sahara I've seen pop up over the past few days:
- most (90%) of Morocco's phosphate mining is done in non-disputed territories (it's mentioned in the article). The most disputed resource is actually fish, and to some degree predicted oil reserves.
- Tribal allegiances to the Moroccan crown date back from way before colonial times. Today, part of the Sahrawi population supports Morocco and another part supports independence.
- There are efforts on both sides to bolster their numbers: Moroccans emigrate to the disputed territories, and Polisario brings in migrants to its refugee camps. That's partly why organising a referendum is almost impossible: no-one agrees on who's allowed to vote.
- Morocco and Algeria (/ the Ottomans before Algeria) have been fighting over access to southwards trade for centuries. Geopolitically, the endgame for Algeria is to encircle Morocco.
- Polisario itself is quite antidemocratic. Only two leaders in 50 years of existence, and lots of corruption.
- Morocco's plan is actually of "advanced autonomy", which would let Sahrawis get their own parliament, amongst other things.
- Today, Sahrawis on the Moroccan controlled areas basically enjoy a welfare state with free transport, no VAT, and many other benefits.
All in all, it's far from the colonial story we'd reflexively apply onto this situation. I'm biased as I am Moroccan. In my opinion, Morocco is already a deeply multi cultural country, and we need a stable political environment to unite.
This conflict keeps the North Africa region one of the least economically integrated areas in the world. It prevents us from building sustainable people power against oligarchic and authoritarian powers, who are at least just as bad on the Algeria/Polisario side as they are on the Moroccan side (Algeria and Polisario are military dictatorship, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, pick your poison).
One of the lesser known criticisms of the recent "Odyssey' film is that parts were shot in the Western Sahara. I believe Emily Wilson herself was critical of this.
I've never quite understood the nature of this criticism. At best I'd describe it as deeply intellectualized tribalism. But I think I'm being a little too kind.
I (in good faith) don’t understand what you don’t understand. Western Sahara is basically a colony so if you’re opposed to colonialism it isn’t super weird to be opposed to making a movie in that colony, paying taxes etc to the colonizers and so on, no?
It's fascinating. Basically the entire world's phosphate comes from this (it has 70% of the world's proven reserves). No country on earth recognizes Morocco's claims over this Saharawi land. At least they didn't until 2020 when Trump became the first in exchange for Morocco normalizing relations with Israel. The case has been taken to international court multiple times and always ruled against Morocco's claims.
Despite basically the whole world recognizing this unjust occupation, neither the Soviets, the US, Europe, nor China cared to do anything and disrupt this crucial aspect of the global fertilizer industry. The only allies the Saharawi had was Algeria.
I drove through, and the map on vehicle showed it as a separate country. Many, many people warned me the military in Morocco would be pissed and likely not let me in.
They seriously do not want people talking about it being a separate country, or occupied or anything like that.
I cut that corner off the map before I went into Morocco, and at more than one checkpoint they looked at it super carefully.
It is interesting that Western Sahara never developed piracy enterprises similar to Somalia. Is it some combination of:
* stronger government control from Morocco than Somalia has had internally
* little indigenous sea-faring populations outside of controllable cities
* sea lanes with less hospitable currents
* something else?
I had never heard of Western Sahara, nor did I know about Morocco's involvement even though I've visited Morocco several times. So I found this very interesting and I learnt something new. Seems to fit here quite well to me.
https://www.livescience.com/64677-stone-structures-discovere...
It's impressive to look at satellite images of this. Just a huge sand wall, with hundreds and hundreds of military outposts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Western_Sahara_wall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Western_sahara_walls_moro...
- most (90%) of Morocco's phosphate mining is done in non-disputed territories (it's mentioned in the article). The most disputed resource is actually fish, and to some degree predicted oil reserves.
- Tribal allegiances to the Moroccan crown date back from way before colonial times. Today, part of the Sahrawi population supports Morocco and another part supports independence.
- There are efforts on both sides to bolster their numbers: Moroccans emigrate to the disputed territories, and Polisario brings in migrants to its refugee camps. That's partly why organising a referendum is almost impossible: no-one agrees on who's allowed to vote.
- Morocco and Algeria (/ the Ottomans before Algeria) have been fighting over access to southwards trade for centuries. Geopolitically, the endgame for Algeria is to encircle Morocco.
- Polisario itself is quite antidemocratic. Only two leaders in 50 years of existence, and lots of corruption.
- Morocco's plan is actually of "advanced autonomy", which would let Sahrawis get their own parliament, amongst other things.
- Today, Sahrawis on the Moroccan controlled areas basically enjoy a welfare state with free transport, no VAT, and many other benefits.
All in all, it's far from the colonial story we'd reflexively apply onto this situation. I'm biased as I am Moroccan. In my opinion, Morocco is already a deeply multi cultural country, and we need a stable political environment to unite.
This conflict keeps the North Africa region one of the least economically integrated areas in the world. It prevents us from building sustainable people power against oligarchic and authoritarian powers, who are at least just as bad on the Algeria/Polisario side as they are on the Moroccan side (Algeria and Polisario are military dictatorship, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, pick your poison).
https://www.tiktok.com/@mrcodydahler/video/76701977955375710...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/disney-criticized-for-film...
https://www.ynetnews.com/opinions-analysis/article/byrfqojbz...
Despite basically the whole world recognizing this unjust occupation, neither the Soviets, the US, Europe, nor China cared to do anything and disrupt this crucial aspect of the global fertilizer industry. The only allies the Saharawi had was Algeria.
Surprisingly, the best researched documentary I've seen on this came from a Youtuber called Cogito: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T2ha4a_AuE
EDIT: oh yeah and ofc Kissinger is involved in this :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus#Biological_role
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Phosphor
Phosphor is not renewable/regrowable and recycling is very hard/expensive. In a nutshell: The worlds food completely relies on this molekule.
They seriously do not want people talking about it being a separate country, or occupied or anything like that.
I cut that corner off the map before I went into Morocco, and at more than one checkpoint they looked at it super carefully.
Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.
And of course there's the background indirect issue where the world's largest navy is stationed half on the same ocean.
Another is that Somalis are extra prone to piracy.
I learned quite a lot in just the first 10 seconds of looking at the wiki.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.eh