Morocco Opens Investigation into Western Sahara Attacks

Forces loyal to the Polisario Front (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Forces loyal to the Polisario Front (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Morocco Opens Investigation into Western Sahara Attacks

Forces loyal to the Polisario Front (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Forces loyal to the Polisario Front (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Morocco's Public Prosecutor at the Court of Appeal in Laayoune said that investigations were opened into a series of explosions that killed one person and injured three others on Saturday in the city of Smara in Western Sahara.

The Public Prosecutor said in a statement that the investigations were entrusted to a team with technical and ballistic expertise to identify the origin and nature of the projectiles.

The projectiles killed one man, injured three others, and also damaged two houses. Two people suffering from severe injuries were transferred to a hospital in Laayoune, west of Smara.

Moroccan al-Yaoum 24 website said the explosions in Smara were caused by the Polisario attacks launched from the Tifariti region, in a dangerous precedent that targeted residential neighborhoods.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Moroccan sources said that the Polisario Front is "playing with fire" by targeting civilians, describing its actions as a "cowardly act of terrorism."

Meanwhile, the Sahara Press Service, affiliated with the Polisario Front, said its units targeted Moroccan forces in the al-Mahbas sector, causing heavy losses.

The Ministry of National Defense issued a military communique stating that advanced units of the Sahrawi People's Liberation Army targeted Moroccan soldiers in Akrara el-Fersik and el-Shadimia.

Morrocan forces were also targeted in the Mahbes sector.

The source stated that the Front's militias focused their attacks earlier, targeting Moroccan forces' positions in the Smara and Mahbas.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.