The conclusion conducted by the Maghreb Integration Report revealed that 1,200 Moroccans (89% of those surveyed) would like to see the borders with Algeria reopened. Interviewees were selected from all regions of Morocco spanning from the Sahara to Tangier, and associated with various demographic brackets. At present, the Maghreb region (Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) is strained politically due to border tensions with Algeria. The poll results further indicate that the Sand War of October 1963 is still at the root of the grievances.
Among the unsettled issues between the two countries is Algeria’s role in supporting the Polisario, whose claim is the territory of the Western Sahara. Furthermore, after Morocco issued a visa requirement for the Algerians in 2004, the border from Morocco to Algeria was closed.
Sensing that change is on the horizon after nearly two decades of bitterness, King Mohammed VI addressed the situation in his 2019 Throne Day Speech. He reminded both Moroccans and Algerians that “we are brothers” and that a “loyalty to the bonds rooted in brotherhood, religion, language, and good-neighborliness have always existed between the people of the two sister nations.”