Mauritania faces fresh produce shortage due to Polisario banditry

As the Polisario militias continue blocking the free flow of commercial traffic on the Guerguarat border crossing between Morocco and Mauritania, food markets in Nouakchott are suffering from an acute shortage in vegetables and fruits.

Morocco is Mauritania’s main supplier of fresh produce and the provocations of the Polisario caused many trucks to return to the cities of Morocco’s southern provinces instead of continuing their way to Mauritanian market and beyond.

Morocco and the UN have denounced the hindrance of commercial traffic in the strongest terms but the Polisario seems intent on breaching the 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire which provides for maintaining the border strip between Morocco and Mauritania as a demilitarized area.

In a video published by le360.ma. Mauritanian vegetables and fruits salesmen complained of the blockade of the road and the shortage of Moroccan agricultural products which sent prices skyrocketing.

Tomato prices increased five-fold and the cost of carrots doubled while merchants hope for a reopening of the road to avert a further inflation of prices.

Morocco tops African exporters with 44.3% of total supplies to Mauritania in the first half this year.