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Smara
Smara ( ar, السمارة ''as-Samāra'', also romanized ''Semara''; es, Esmara) is a city in the Moroccan-controlled part of Western Sahara, with a population of 57,035 recorded in the 2014 Moroccan census. It is served by Smara Airport and Smara bus station. History The largest city in its province, Smara was founded in the Saguia el-Hamra as an oasis for travellers in 1869. In the center of the city the remains of a stone fortress can be found, the Zawiy Maalainin, which enclosed a mosque. The Maalainin lived there from 1830 until 1912. It was made a capital and religious center in 1902 by shaykh Ma al-'Aynayn, in what was then Spanish Sahara. The location of the city was intended to ensure its becoming a caravan trade hub in the sparsely populated Sahara desert. The enlargement of Smara was carried out by local Sahrawis as well as craftsmen sent by the sultan Hassan I. In 1902, shaykh Ma al-'Aynayn moved to Smara and declared it his holy capital. Among other things, he crea ...
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Michel Vieuchange
Michel Vieuchange, born in Nevers in 1904 and died in Agadir in 1930, was a French adventurer who was the first European to visit the abandoned ruins of the walled city of Smara, in the interior of the Sahara. On 10 September 1930 Vieuchange set off on his journey of discovery into a largely unexplored region of North Africa. He was unsure of the exact location of Smara, nor did he speak Arabic or Berber; languages of the few nomads in the region. Through severe hardship he reached his goal and returned to civilization on 16 November at the Moroccan town of Tiznit, almost 400 km from Smara. Vieuchange died a few days later, weakened from dysentery. He maintained a journal of his adventure, which was published by his brother Jean Vieuchange in 1932 as ''Smara, chez les dissidents du Sud marocain et du Rio de Oro'' (English title: ''Smara: The Forbidden City''). In his early twenties, Vieuchange obtained a degree in literature and wrote a first (unpublished) novel ''Hipparète ...
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Jean Vieuchange
Jean Joseph Marie Vieuchange (1906–2003) was a French adventurer and medical doctor, best known for preparing for publication the hand-written notebooks of his brother, Michel, describing his discovery of Smara in the Western Sahara in November 1930. Vieuchange was born in 1906 into a comfortable middle-class family in Nevers, France, the youngest of three children. His sister, Germaine, was born in 1901 and his brother, Michel, in 1904. In 1922, the family moved to Paris, where Vieuchange enrolled as a law student at the Sorbonne; finding law tedious he transferred to medicine three years later. During 1929 and 1930, he was involved in the planning his brother's journey to Smara and moved to Essaouira in Morocco in August 1930 with the intention of travelling with him. At the last moment, following advice from Caïd Haddou, a local tribal leader, the brothers decided that Vieuchange would stay behind ready to mount a rescue mission should Michel fall ill, be injured or be taken ...
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Smara Airport
Smara Airport is an airport in Smara (also known as Semara), a city in Western Sahara (administered by Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...). Destinations There are currently no scheduled commercial flights to and from Smara Airpor References External links * Airports in Western Sahara {{WesternSahara-airport-stub ...
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Ma Al-'Aynayn
Mohamed Mustafa Ma al-'Aynayn (; c. 1830–31 in Oualata, present-day Mauritania – 1910 in Tiznit, Morocco; complete name Mohamad Mustafa ben Mohamad Fadel Maa al-'Aynayn ash-Shanguiti ar, محمد مصطفى بن محمد فاضل ماء العينين الشنقيطي) was a Saharan Moorish religious and political leader who fought French and Spanish colonization in North Africa. He was the son of Mohammed Fadil Mamin (founder of the Fadiliyya, a Qadiriyya Sufi brotherhood), and the elder brother of shaykh Saad Bouh, a prominent marabout (religious leader) in Mauritania. Early years Ma al-'Aynayn was born in 1830 in the southern Hawdh region, the twelfth of 48 brothers born to the Qadiri Sufi Sheikh Muhammad Fadil. p. 165, citing B. G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa. pp. 125-151 He was singled out among his brothers to study in Fes. In 1859, Ma al-'Aynayn settled in the oasis of Tindouf in present-day Algeria. Ma al-'Aynayn was a nickname he ...
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Polisario Front
The Polisario Front, Frente Polisario, Frelisario or simply Polisario, from the Spanish abbreviation of (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro), (in ar, rtl=yes, الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير الساقية الحمراء ووادي الذهب, al-Jabhah al-Shaʿbiyah Li-Taḥrīr as-Sāqiyah al-Ḥamrāʾ wa Wādī al-Dhahab), is a rebel Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement claiming Western Sahara. Tracing its origin to a Sahrawi nationalist organization known as the Movement for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Wadi el Dhahab, the Polisario Front was formally constituted in 1973 with the intention of launching an armed struggle against the Spanish occupation which lasted until 1975, when the Spanish decided to allow Mauritania and Morocco to partition and occupy the territory. The Polisario Front waged a war to drive out the two armies. It forced Mauritania to relinquish its claim over Western Sahara in 1979 and continu ...
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Dysentery
Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications may include dehydration. The cause of dysentery is usually the bacteria from genus ''Shigella'', in which case it is known as shigellosis, or the amoeba ''Entamoeba histolytica''; then it is called amoebiasis. Other causes may include certain chemicals, other bacteria, other protozoa, or parasitic worms. It may spread between people. Risk factors include contamination of food and water with feces due to poor sanitation. The underlying mechanism involves inflammation of the intestine, especially of the colon. Efforts to prevent dysentery include hand washing and food safety measures while traveling in areas of high risk. While the condition generally resolves on its own within a week, drinking sufficient fluids such as oral rehydration s ...
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Sahrawi People
The Sahrawi, or Saharawi people ( ar, صحراويون '; es, Saharaui), are an ethnic group and nation native to the western part of the Sahara desert, which includes the Western Sahara, southern Morocco, much of Mauritania, and along the southwestern border of Algeria. They are of mixed Berber, Arab and Black African descent. As with most peoples living in the Sahara, the Sahrawi culture is a mix of Arab and indigenous African elements. The modern Sahrawi culture consists of a Berber core and considerable Arab influences. Sahrawis are composed of many tribes and are largely speakers of the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic. Etymology The Arabic word ' literally means "Inhabitant of the Desert". The word Sahrawi is derived from the Arabic word ' (), meaning desert. A man is called a "Sahrawi", and a woman is called a "Sahrawiya". In other languages it is pronounced in similar or different ways: * Berber: ''Aseḥrawi'' or ''Aneẓrofan'' * English: ''Sahrawi'' or ''Sahar ...
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Refugee Camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. Usually, refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations (such as the International Committee of the Red Cross), or non-governmental organization. Unofficial refugee camps, such as Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, are where refugees are largely left without support of governments or international organizations. Refugee camps generally develop in an impromptu fashion with the aim of meeting basic human needs for only a shor ...
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Western Sahara
Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the remaining 80% of the territory is military occupation, occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco. Its surface area amounts to . It is one of the List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density, most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara. Occupied by Spain until 1975, Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand. It is the most populous territory on that list, and by far the largest in area. In 1965, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its first resolution on Wes ...
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Saguia El-Hamra
Saguia el-Hamra ( es, Saguía el Hamra, ar, الساقية الحمراء, lit=Red Canal, translit=al-Saqiyah al-Hamra'a) was, with Río de Oro, one of the two territories that formed the Spanish province of Spanish Sahara after 1969. Its name comes from a waterway that goes through the capital. The wadi is inhabited by the Oulad Tidrarin Sahrawi tribe. Occupying the northern part of Western Sahara, it lay between the 26th parallel north and 27°50'N. The city of Cape Bojador served to divide the regions. Its colonial capital was El Aaiún (Laâyoune), and it also included the city of Smara. The territory takes its name from an intermittent river, the Saguia el-Hamra, the route of which runs west from south of El Farcya to reach the Atlantic at Laayoune Laâyoune ( , also , ) or El Aaiún ( , ; Hassaniya Arabic: , romanized: ; ber, ⵍⵄⵢⵓⵏ, Leɛyun; ar, label= Literary Arabic, العيون, al-ʿUyūn/el-ʿUyūn, lit=The Springs) is the largest city of the di ...
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Spanish Sahara
Spanish Sahara ( es, Sahara Español; ar, الصحراء الإسبانية, As-Sahrā'a Al-Isbānīyah), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958 then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was occupied and ruled by Spain between 1884 and 1976. It had been one of the most recent acquisitions, as well as one of the last remaining holdings, of the Spanish Empire, which had once extended from the Americas to the Spanish East Indies. Between 1946 and 1958, the Spanish Sahara was amalgamated with the nearby Spanish-protected Cape Juby and Spanish Ifni to form a new colony, Spanish West Africa. This was reversed during the Ifni War when Ifni and the Sahara became provinces of Spain separately, two days apart, while Cape Juby was ceded to Morocco in the peace deal. Spain gave up its Saharan possession following Moroccan demands and international pressure, mainly from United Natio ...
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Atar
Atar, Atash, or Azar ( ae, 𐬁𐬙𐬀𐬭, translit=ātar) is the Zoroastrian concept of holy fire, sometimes described in abstract terms as "burning and unburning fire" or "visible and invisible fire" (Mirza, 1987:389). It is considered to be the visible presence of Ahura Mazda and his Asha through the eponymous Yazata. The rituals for purifying a fire are performed 1,128 times a year. In the Avestan language, ''ātar'' is an attribute of sources of heat and light, of which the nominative singular form is ''ātarš'', source of Persian ''ātaš'' (fire). It was once thought to be etymologically related to the Avestan ''āθrauuan'' / ''aθaurun'' (Vedic ''atharvan''), a type of priest, but that is now considered unlikely (Boyce, 2002:16). The ultimate etymology of ''ātar'', previously unknown (Boyce, 2002:1), is now believed to be from the Indo-European *hxehxtr- 'fire'. This would make it related to Latin ''ater'' (black) and possibly a cognate of Albanian ''vatër'', Roman ...
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