Associated Press: Land mine explosion kills 2, wounds 4 in Western Sahara, rights group says

07/12/2006 | Press

RABAT, Morocco: Two people were killed and four others injured when their vehicle detonated an anti-personnel mine in Western Sahara, a human rights group said Thursday.

The two men were killed Monday when their sport utility vehicle struck the mine near Bir Anzarane in the south of Western Sahara, said the Saharawi Association of Victims of Human Rights Violations.

Four others in the car were treated for injuries in a nearby hospital, the group said in a statement.

Western Sahara is littered with mines left over from fighting between the Moroccan army and the Polisario Front, made up of ethnic Saharawi fighters, from 1975 to 1991. The mines kill and injure several people every year.

Morocco controls roughly two-thirds of the desert territory, including the town of Bir Anzarane, following a U.N.-brokered cease-fire in 1991.

The Polisario Front controls the eastern third of Western Sahara, and is involved in demining efforts with the help of a United Nations peacekeeping mission and private non-governmental groups. The group is based in neighboring Algeria, where some 160,000 Saharawi refugees live in desert camps.