Sumar calls on Foreign Ministry to summon the Moroccan ambassador after the deaths of three Polisario Front members

Eduardo González The deaths of three Polisario Front members, including Lehbib Mohamed Abdelaziz, son of former president Mohamed Abdelaziz, during a Moroccan attack have caused a new rift within the coalition government regarding the Sahrawi issue. Sumar, a minority member of Pedro Sánchez's government, has demanded that the Moroccan ambassador, Karima Benyaich, be summoned to explain the events. The three Polisario Front militants died this Sunday in combat during a Moroccan attack near the separation wall in the former Spanish colony. Lehbib Mohamed Abdelaziz, 37, son of Mohamed Abdelaziz (one of the founders of the Polisario Front and president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic from 1982 until his death in 2016), had been appointed in 2024 as head of the First Field Brigade and a member of the Front's National Secretariat. The Moroccan attack, carried out with an Armed Forces drone, coincided with a visit by the UN Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, to the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. Following this attack, the Polisario Front's representative in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, denounced "the double standards by which Spain currently conducts its foreign policy." “Proof of this is that it only questions, investigates, and condemns events when they are perpetrated by one of the parties,” while, “when the victims are Sahrawis, the silence becomes deafening,” he told the Europa Press news agency, referring to the recent statement from the Spanish Embassy in Rabat condemning an attack by the Polisario Front in Esmara, in the Moroccan-controlled part of Western Sahara, which caused no casualties. Sumar For its part, Sumar, a minority member of Pedro Sánchez's governing coalition and expressly opposed to the government's stance on Western Sahara, denounced in a statement "the ceasefire violations" by Morocco, which ignore UN Security Council Resolution 2797/2026, and the deaths of three Polisario Front activists during a "Moroccan drone attack," which coincided with Mistura's visit to "relaunch the negotiation process for a definitive peace, with the agreement of the parties, that allows for the self-determination of the Sahrawi people." In this regard, Alberto Ibáñez, a member of parliament for Compromís (a member of Sumar), lamented at a press conference on Tuesday that no member of the government had denounced this latest Moroccan attack and called on the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to summon the Moroccan ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, to demand explanations for these events. The situation in Western Sahara has become the main point of international friction between the two components of the coalition government since President Pedro Sánchez's decision to endorse the autonomy plan proposed by Rabat. On May 11, the Sumar party submitted a written parliamentary question to the government, asserting that, “since November 13, 2020, when Morocco broke the ceasefire signed with the Polisario Front in 1991 and declared a state of war,” the authorities in Rabat have committed “numerous atrocities both in the occupied territories through the murder of civilians and the use of Israeli-made drones against non-combatant populations.” Despite this, Sumar lamented, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has limited itself to publicly condemning, via social media, “the recent impact of three projectiles on the outskirts of the city of Esmara, located in the northern part of Western Sahara, without fatalities, an incident claimed by the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army.” “In contrast, the vast majority of Moroccan attacks have gone uncondemned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, revealing a painful and damaging bias that jeopardizes the well-being and future of the Sahrawi population and the Polisario Front, the sole legitimate representative of their interests,” denounces Díaz's party. This fact, they warn, is “even more serious when one considers that Spain, under international law, remains the administering power of Western Sahara.” For all these reasons, Sumar asked, “On how many occasions has the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Moroccan attacks against the civilian population?” and “On how many occasions has the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Moroccan attacks using Israeli-made drones?”

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