The Polisario Front announced the death this Sunday in combat of the Saharawi leader Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz, son of the founder of the independence organization and member of its National Secretariat, who fell a “martyr in the fight” against Morocco along with two other combatants.
The Sahrawi armed forces released a statement in which they did not specify the circumstances of the deaths nor detail the identity of the other two deceased people.
Lahbib Mohamed Abdelaziz is the son of the former president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and historic leader of the Polisario Mohamed Abdelaziz, who died in May 2016, at the age of 68 after a long illness, and who took the fight for Sahrawi independence from the battlefields to the halls of the UN.
Abdelaziz was born in 1989 in the Sahrawi camps of Tindouf (southwest Algeria), he had a degree in International Relations and joined the Sahrawi Popular Liberation Army – which fights for the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco – in November 2011.
He held various positions in the Sahrawi political and military structures until he became a member of the General Staff of the Army and central director of training.
Married and father of three children, he was appointed commander of the first field brigade of the Sahrawi armed forces in 2024 and elected member of the National Secretariat at the XVI Congress of the Polisario Front.
In the eastern area of the Sahara, there has been a situation of tension since 2020 when Moroccan troops entered the demilitarized area of Guerguerat, which separates Mauritania from the Saharan territories, to dismantle a sit-in by Sahrawi activists who blocked the only road that connects Morocco with sub-Saharan countries.
Polisario considered that the Moroccan action represented a breach of the ceasefire agreement signed under the auspices of the UN in 1991, and undertook military operations against the wall built by Morocco in Western Sahara to protect its control over the 80% of the Sahrawi territory that is under its administration.
Morocco responded primarily with drone bombings against pro-independence forces as they attempted to access disputed territory.
The eastern and southern strips of Western Sahara, which make up 20% of the territory, are for Polisario part of its “liberated territories”, while the UN calls them a “buffer zone” (mandatory demilitarized) and Morocco considers them part of its territory.
