Western Sahara is an Atlantic-coastal desert area of 266,000km2,
bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. A
former Spanish colony, it has been on the the United Nations
(UN) list of non-self-governing territories since 1965 along with
17 other territories.
'Non-self-governing territories' are defined as
"territories whose people have not yet attained a full measure
of self-government" according to Chapter XI of the UN
Charter.
The reasons for a region to be declared a
non-self-governing vary and are specific to each
territory. In the case of Western Sahara, this is mainly
due to the fact that it is a disputed territory between the
Saharawi people, led by the Polisario Front, which self-proclaimed
it the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in 1976, and
Morocco, which annexed two-thirds of the country in 1975 after the
withdrawal of Spain.
