Algeria accuses Morocco of having carried out “targeted assassinations” which caused three civilian victims in the part of Western Sahara controlled by the Polisario. The attack took place not far from the Mauritanian border.
The attack took place early Sunday morning following two Moroccan drone strikes. The first targeted an Algerian truck, causing minor injuries. The other hit a convoy of civilian cars, just a few hundred meters from the border post of Aïn Ben Tili, located in the far north of Mauritania.
Not far from this security post is a mosque. Sahrawi witnesses say that the attacked convoy had just left the building. The balance sheet of civilian victims would amount to three dead and several wounded: Sahrawi civilians, including a woman, all belonging to the same family. Well-known traders in Mauritania.
On the evening of April 13, Mohamed Melainine Ould Eyih, spokesperson for the Mauritanian government, acknowledged that two Mauritanian nationals were killed on Sunday. “The incident took place outside our national territory,” he adds, without giving further details. According to our information, it is a woman and her daughter.
A well-informed Mauritanian source claims that it was the Mauritanian army that picked up the victims. For its part, Algiers mentions three victims “from three countries in the region”, without further details. In a press release, the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs points the finger at Morocco, denouncing “belligerent practices which are similar to repetitive acts of State terrorism and take on the characteristics of extrajudicial executions”. Algiers finally warns against “serious risks of potentially perilous regional drifts”.
Unlike Algiers, Rabat and Nouakchott remain silent on this new attack. This kind of incident at the Mauritanian border is on the rise. Last November, three Algerian truckers were killed in this same area of Western Sahara and Algeria had promised to avenge them. In January, Mauritanian gold miners died in this area following Moroccan drone strikes.
