23 years after the establishment of the ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario, the Sahara war continues to kill and handicap innocent people, through anti-personnel mines laid long ago here and there in the vast desert of southern Morocco. This is the case of a family from Smara who, out on an excursion in the family vehicle, almost perished following the explosion of a mine.

This regrettable incident, which is not the first of its kind and will certainly not be the last despite the demining campaign launched in the Southern provinces since 15 January 2007, has allowed for the recovery of more than 18,451 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and the destruction of 15,266 explosive devices. It is enormous, but we have not, for all that, come to the end of the hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of these engines of death.

According to a report established by the Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of the National Defence Administration, three combat "engineering" battalions equipped with sophisticated means of detection and neutralisation are at work in the sectors of Oued Drâa, Sakia El-Hamra, and Oued Eddahab, supported by 9,000 soldiers, and which have targeted the immediate surroundings of built-up areas and grazing zones.

The same report indicates that the presence of mines in this zone dates back to the armed phase of the conflict opposing Morocco to the separatists of the Polisario Front supported by Algeria, whose modus operandi consisted of burying, in an anarchic manner and without signalling them on any staff maps, mines in such a way as to block all axes likely to be used both by the FAR units and by civilian populations.

Contrary to the separatists and their Algerian sponsors, Morocco, which has ratified the Ottawa Convention aimed at eliminating anti-personnel mines, spares no effort to get rid of them while disseminating information concerning them and raising awareness among shepherds, breeders, or simple hikers about the dangers they represent.