Guelta Zemmur (or Guelta Zemour,

Tamazight The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight, are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related but mostly mutually unintelligible languages spoken by Berber communities, who ar ...

for "olive tree pool") is a small town or village in the Moroccan-administered part of the territory of

Western Sahara Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...

. The town is based around a guelta or oasis, retaining rain water for long periods. It was a camp site for the Sahrawi nomads of the area for hundreds of years. It functioned as one of the most important military strongholds for the indigenous

Polisario Front The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro (Spanish language, Spanish: ; ), better known by its acronym Polisario Front, is a Sahrawi nationalism, Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement seeking to end the occupatio ...

guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...

after the retreat of

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

from what was then Spanish Sahara. As

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

and

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

asserted control over the former Spanish

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

from the north and south according to the Madrid Accords, Guelta Zemmur acted as a stopping-point for

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s en route to the Sahrawi

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for in ...

s in

Tindouf Tindouf () is the main town, and a Communes of Algeria, commune in Tindouf Province, Algeria, close to the Algeria–Mauritania border, Mauritanian, Algeria–Western Sahara border, Western Saharan and Algeria–Morocco border, Moroccan borders. Th ...

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. It was also noted for the Guelta Zemmur conference on November 28, 1975, on the heels of the Ain Ben Tili conference. A gathering of the formerly Spanish-backed Djema'a was held in the town (then under Polisario control), where it agreed to support Polisario and dissolve itself to leave room for a future Western Sahara government. The Polisario argues that this is the

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), also known as the Sahrawi Republic and Western Sahara, is a partially recognized state in the western Maghreb, which claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, but controls only ...

, an exile government operative in Tindouf, which was declared in February the following year. During the 1975-91 war between Polisario and Morocco, there were several battles over control of Guelta Zemmur, the heaviest taking place on March 24–27 and October 13, 1981. Presently, the town is controlled by Morocco as part of what it claims as its Southern Provinces, but its final status is yet to be determined. It now holds a Moroccan military base with a

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

communications center, and the areas around the town (which is close to the Moroccan Berm) are heavily mined. The town is the birthplace of Sahrawi human rights defender Mohammed Daddach, who is Morocco's longest serving

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

References

{{Boujdour Province Populated places in Western Sahara Western Sahara conflict Oases of Western Sahara