Shaheed El Hafed, October 20, 2025 (SPS) – The General Union of Workers of Saguia El Hamra and Rio de Oro (UGTSARIO) celebrated on Monday the National Day of Sahrawi Workers, which coincides with the 51st anniversary of the heroic operation to blow up the phosphate conveyor belt.
The event, attended by members of the National Secretariat, the Government, the Advisory and National Councils, as well as a delegation from the Algerian Workers’ Union, was marked by speeches honoring the event and its significance, highlighting the major role of Sahrawi workers in fueling the struggle and their clear contribution to the Sahrawi people's march toward freedom and independence.
In this context, the Secretary-General of UGTSARIO, Nafei Ahmed Mohamed, stressed that this anniversary reminds us of the mounting challenges and hardships endured by Sahrawi workers due to the tragedy of exile, occupation, and exploitation as cheap labor outside legal frameworks, while thousands of Sahrawi youth remain unemployed or forcibly displaced from their homeland.
The Political Commissariat of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army presented a briefing on the October 20, 1974 operation to blow up the phosphate conveyor belt, carried out by a group of Sahrawi workers. This operation exerted significant pressure on the Spanish colonial government, making it realize the strength of the Polisario Front in leading and organizing Sahrawis toward a single goal: national independence and the end of occupation.
The Commissariat also praised UGTSARIO for its steadfast struggle and its central role in the Sahrawi people’s fight to assert their existence.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, an intellectual symposium was held on the heroic blow up operation, workers’ rights, and the pioneering role of workers in leading peoples toward freedom.
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