The Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in Northwestern Africa is a territory where the Sahrawi have been living in limbo for more than forty years in one of Africa's longest frozen conflict. A tiny part of desert in the East bordering Algeria is controlled by the Polisario, a Sahrawi nationalist independence movement and is separated by a heavily mined 1,600 kilometre sand wall which divides the Western Sahara in two. Morocco is in full control of the coastal lands West of the sand wall and have all but fully integrated the resource-rich territory within Morocco. Over the years numerous people from Morocco have been moved to the Southern Provinces as they are officially called in order to consolidate their hold on the territory and to exploit its mining and fishstock resources. Old Spanish barracks near Laayoune. The Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975. Laayoune region, December 2018