Airlines hit turbulence over Sahara flights

Direct flights from two European capitals to a city in a bitterly disputed north African territory have become the latest battleground in a conflict between a rebel group and Moroccan forces.

- WAFAA ESSAAL

Low-cost airlines have opened routes linking Madrid and Paris to Dakhla in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.

Questions about the legality of the flights have thrown their future in doubt. The Polisario Front, which controls about 20% of the territory, has threatened action if the European carriers maintain the routes.

For about $20 (S22), Virginia Santana can now take a three-hour flight every week from Madrid to Dakhla, located on a slim peninsula that juts into the Atlantic, where she is supervising the construction of a hotel.

"This new route is revolutionary," the Spanish businesswoman, who is in her 30s, told AFP at Madrid airport as she waited for a flight to Dakhla.

Financed by Spanish investors, Ms. Santana's hotel is a symbol of a territory long driven by Moroccan authorities who have stepped up their territorial claims.

Morocco controls around 80% of Western Sahara, where the United Nations has had a peacekeeping mission since 1991 in what it considers a "non-self-governing territory."