Madrid, 27 October 2026 (SPS) – An international report presented on Monday in the Spanish capital, entitled “Tourism in the Context of Occupation: Dakhla from Military Base to Pearl of the Desert,” has exposed the role of natural resource exploitation and major infrastructure projects in entrenching Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara and integrating the territory into the occupying state’s economic system.
Coordinated by the Sahrawi Working Group on Natural Resources and Related Legal Issues, the report explains how the exploitation of Bou Craa phosphate, the rich fishing grounds of Dakhla Bay, and groundwater-intensive agricultural expansion, alongside renewable energy projects and the Dakhla Atlantic Port, serve as economic pillars for consolidating Moroccan control over the territory.
The report notes that these projects, together with airports, roads and air links, are primarily designed not to serve the development needs of the Sahrawi population, but to facilitate the export of natural resources and encourage Moroccan settlement, while Sahrawis are marginalised and denied opportunities to benefit from their territory’s resources.
It warns that such investments are helping impose an economic and geopolitical reality that makes decolonisation more difficult. The exploitation of the territory’s resources and the alteration of its demographic and economic landscape, it adds, constitute violations of international humanitarian law.
The report also highlights the role of tourism and air connections, particularly flights operated by Ryanair, in further integrating occupied Dakhla into Morocco’s economic and commercial system, despite Western Sahara remaining on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
It calls on the international community and multinational companies to stop supporting extractive projects and to ensure that all economic activities in the territory respect the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination and sovereignty over their natural resources.
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