Brussels, January 1, 2011 (SPS) - Western Sahara Resource Watch network (WSRW), comprising non-governmental organizations from about thirty countries around the world, has urged the Russian government to “immediately follow the European Union’s example and withdraw its fishing boats from Western Sahara occupied by Morocco,” said the network’s release.
“The EU withdrew its fleet of Western Sahara, a territory occupied by Morocco. Trawlers Russian industry should follow the European example,” said WSRW, which campaigns for foreign companies interested in the wealth of the occupied territory to cease activities in Western Sahara.
In mid December, MEPs decided not to renew the fishing agreement signed in 2007 between the EU and Morocco, which allowed the European fleet to fish in the territorial waters of Western Sahara.
According to the spokesman of WSRW, Ms. Sara Eyckmans, the Russian fisheries agreement in Western Sahara, signed in early 2011, “is 100,000 tons per year.”
She also denounced the fact that the Russian fleet “fishing outside waters under the agreement,” noting that the Article 1 of the Russian-Moroccan agreement indicating that the Atlantic party of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Morocco “However, the waters of Western Sahara are not part of the Moroccan EEZ.”
“Unlike the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Morocco has never issued any maritime claim over these waters,” said WSRW in a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev 16 December 2011.
An evaluation of the European Commission for Fisheries in Western Sahara concluded that fish stocks in the Saharawi territorial waters are currently threatened with extinction by the fishing industry. (SPS)
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