Laayoune, December 19: More than a month after starting a hunger strike in a war of nerves with Moroccan authorities, Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar arrived back in the disputed Moroccan territory early Friday.
Her plane touched down shortly after midnight (0015 GMT) in Laayoune, the main city in Western Sahara, after leaving Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Police said Haidar carried out entry requirements at the airport, stating on a form that she was “arriving in Morocco”, before leaving in a car driven by her uncle.
Haidar, 42, was released from hospital in Lanzarote late Thursday, declaring triumph in her protest over being exiled from Western Sahara which has been a source of tension since Morocco annexed the territory after the withdrawal of colonial power Spain in 1975.
“This is a triumph for international law, for human rights, for international justice and for the cause” of Western Sahara, said Haidar as she left the clinic and was taken to the airport in an ambulance.
“The first thing I am going to do when I arrive will be to kiss my mother and my two children,” she said.
Haidar launched her protest in Lanzarote airport on November 16 after Rabat denied her entry to her native Western Sahara.
The mother-of-two was turned back as she tried to return home after a trip to the United States, where she had recently received a prize for her human rights work from the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.
Haidar was accompanied on her flight home by her personal doctor, who looked after her during the first days of her hunger strike before she refused medical treatment.
Despite her admission to intensive care after her condition deteriorated, Haidar insisted on continuing her hunger strike.
After the affair turned into a stalemate between Madrid and Rabat, French President Nicolas Sarkozy intervened this week, asking Morocco to give Haidar a passport, the French presidency announced late Thursday.
The Moroccan foreign ministry confirmed Friday that Rabat had granted the request of “friendly countries and partners” for Haidar’s return to Laayoune but said it remained firm on “total respect for Moroccan law by everybody without exception and on the integrity of the national territory.”
Morocco annexed the Western Sahara following the withdrawal of colonial power Spain in the dying days of the regime of right-wing dictator Francisco Franco, sparking a war with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front movement.
The two sides agreed a ceasefire in 1991, but UN-sponsored talks on its future have since made no headway.
Morocco has pledged to grant the phosphate-rich territory widespread autonomy, but rules out independence.
The United States was “pleased” with Morocco’s decision to readmit Haidar, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
—Agencies