“We are being told by the West to simply accept our reality — the reality of occupation,” Sahrawi journalist Nazha El Khalidi tells Tribune. “Why don’t we have the same right to self-determination as the Ukrainians? This hypocrisy shows you the real face of Europe and Spain, who are more interested in our land and resources than in the people of Western Sahara.”

El Khalidi’s comments were made against the background of a major diplomatic shift in recent months that has seen the Joe Biden administration and various European powers back Morocco’s proposal for Western Sahara, under which it would be designated an autonomous region within the Moroccan state. This would, in effect, amount to formalizing its illegal occupation of the territory and flies in the face of numerous United Nations’ resolutions on Western Sahara’s right to self-determination, as well as a ruling from the International Court of Justice.

Covering an area the size of Britain, the resource-rich Western Sahara is Africa’s last colony — or what the UN designates as a “non-self-governing territory.” The Sahrawi people were denied independence in 1975 after former colonial power Spain reneged on its promise of a referendum on the country’s future status, instead carving up the territory between Morocco and Mauritania (a decision backed by the United States but without basis under international law). About half the Sahrawi population fled to neighboring Algeria to escape the subsequent Moroccan invasion.