The Moroccan army secures the Guerguerat crossing

 Morocco announced Friday night that the border crossing in the Guerguerat buffer zone in Western Sahara, which is disputed with the Polisario Front, "has become completely secure" after a military operation that the Polisario considered ended the ceasefire between the two sides in effect for 30 years, and that "the war began."

Later in the evening, the General Command of the Moroccan Armed Forces stated that "the Guerguerat crossing is now fully secured by establishing a security belt that secures the flow of goods and people."

"During this operation, the armed militia of the Polisario opened fire on the Royal Armed Forces, which responded to them, and forced the members of these militias to flee without recording any casualties," she added.

She reiterated that the operation was carried out "according to clear rules of intervention that require no contact with civilians."

A statement by the Royal Armed Forces Command said on Friday evening that "the Polisario militia members deliberately set fire to the tent camp that they set up, and they fled on board (jeep) vehicles and trucks towards the east and south under the watchful eyes of the UN mission (MINURSO) observers."

The Moroccan Foreign Ministry stressed Friday night that "Morocco remains firmly attached to maintaining the ceasefire."

Last week, about two hundred Moroccan truck drivers made a distress call to each of Rabat and Nouakchott, in which they said that they were stranded at the Guerguerat crossing, after the Polisario prevented them from crossing.

An official at the Moroccan Foreign Ministry said that 108 people working in transporting goods are stuck on the Mauritanian side of the border and 78 others on the other side, in trucks from different countries of Morocco, Mauritania and France.

For decades, the United Nations has sponsored efforts to find a political solution to end the conflict over Western Sahara. At the end of October, the Security Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) for another year.