Number by catalogue:  Yvert: 1753  

Perforation type: 13 ¾x13 ¾

Subject:

9 dirhams.

Map of Western Sahara * against a desert landscape with a wind farm.

Additional:

*The Green March was a strategic mass demonstration in November 1975, coordinated by the Moroccan government, to force Spain to hand over the disputed, autonomous semi-metropolitan province of Spanish Sahara to Morocco. The demonstration of some 350,000 Moroccans advanced several kilometres into the Western Sahara territory, escorted by nearly 20,000 Moroccan troops, and meeting very little response by the Sahrawi Polisario Front. Nevertheless, the events quickly escalated into a fully waged war between Morocco and the militias of the Polisario, the Western Sahara War, which would last for 16 years. Morocco later gained control over most of the former Spanish Sahara, which it continues to hold.

The Green March was a well-publicized popular march of enormous proportions. On 6 November 1975 approximately 350,000 unarmed Moroccans converged on the city of Tarfaya in southern Morocco and waited for a signal from King Hassan II to cross into the region of Sakiya Lhmra. They brandished Moroccan flags and Qur'an; banners calling for the "return of the Moroccan Sahara," photographs of the King and the Qur'an; the color green for the march's name was intended as a symbol of Islam.[citation needed] As the marchers reached the border, the Spanish Armed Forces were ordered not to fire to avoid bloodshed. The Spanish troops also cleared some previously mined zones.

In 2013, in the north of Western Sahara, the implementation of one of the most ambitious decisions of King Mohammed VI began - the construction of a wind power station, which later received the title as one of the largest in Africa.

Built in just two years and launched in 2015, the Tarfaya complex stretches more than 100 square km across the Saharan desert, its 131 wind turbines grinding out enough electricity to power a city the size of Marrakech every day.

But the renewable energy project is also controversial with some Sahrawi – the people who live in the west of the Sahara desert – who complain that it will deepen what they say is the occupation of their land. As known, the local inhabitants of Western Sahara consider the return of their territories to Morocco - annexation and occupation.

Topics: Wind turbines