20101109
reuters

RABAT (Reuters) - Moroccan security forces were deployed in large numbers in Western Sahara on Tuesday, residents said, after deadly clashes put the dispute over the Moroccan-controlled territory under international scrutiny.

Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony which was annexed by Morocco in 1975 sparking Africa's longest-running territorial dispute, erupted into violence on Monday when Moroccan security forces broke up a protest camp.

The Polisario independence movement said 11 civilians died and 723 were wounded in the clashes -- the worst for years in the territory. In a statement issued from Algeria, where it is based in desert camps, it also said 159 people had disappeared.

Morocco said on Monday four of its police officers and one firefighter had died from wounds sustained in the clashes.

A senior Moroccan official in the regional capital Laayoune said no civilians were killed in the fighting but one had died in a traffic accident, which was being investigated. Four civilians were hurt and none had disappeared but about 160 had been detained for vandalism, he said.

Residents of Laayoune, Western Sahara's main city, said there was still tension but no repeat of Monday's violence.

"Police are deployed in numbers on the streets and outside Polisario strongholds," one independence activist, who said he did not want to be identified for fear of arrest, told Reuters by telephone.

Another resident said: "Dozens of burnt-out cars belonging to police and civilians which were set ablaze by protesters are strewn on both sides of Smara street," describing Laayoune's main thoroughfare. He said some government buildings had also been set on fire and destroyed.