Through a press release published by several sites and across social networks, the separatists from within invited their supporters to participate in a march last Wednesday in the main thoroughfares of Laâyoune. This march was intended to coincide with the festivities organised in the Tifarity buffer zone by the Polisario leadership, on the one hand, and with the visit to Laâyoune of the European Commissioner for Fisheries who was, according to the organisers, supposed to witness the human rights violations they wanted to provoke the security forces into committing, on the other. To encourage the population to attend this march, its organisers spread a rumour that the authorities had authorised it. This was immediately denied in a press release issued by the Pachalik of Laâyoune. The latter also warned that public authorities would intervene to put an end to any activity that could harm public order. Never mind, said the separatists, as the cities of Smara and Boujdour were the next destinations for Christopher Ross, they wanted to provoke the police forces there and force them to react to restore order. Thus, on the evening of Thursday to Friday, Boujdour experienced violent incidents. But it was in Smara that the clashes on the evening of Friday to Saturday were the most serious. Having started at the beginning of the evening on Friday, they continued until dawn on Saturday, 25 May. This is what emerges from a press release issued by the Wilaya of Guelmim-Smara, which specified that "the public forces dispersed a gathering of rioters and troublemakers, the majority of whom were teenagers". The press release specifies that the intervention of the public forces was motivated by the illegal occupation of the public highway by the rioters who destroyed public and private property, burned tyres and set fire to gas canisters, thus sowing terror among the city's inhabitants. The operation was led, according to the press release, by members of the security forces who put their lives in danger to control the fire. The press release added that 26 members of the security forces were injured, which necessitated the evacuation of seven of them, whose injuries were serious, to the hospitals in Laâyoune.