Zambia and Eswatini Open Consulates in Laayoune

The Republic of Zambia and the Kingdom of Eswatini opened, on Tuesday, their Consulates General in the Southern Moroccan city of Laayoune. These new consulates are the 7th and 8th diplomatic representations set up in the capital of Moroccan Sahara in less than a year.
The inauguration ceremony of the Zambian Consulate was co-chaired by Moroccan foreign minister Nasser Bourita and Secretary General of Zambia’s ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chalwe Lombe.
On the same day, a new Consulate General of the Kingdom of Eswatini was inaugurated in Laayoune by the foreign ministers of the two countries, Nasser Bourita and Thulisile Dladla.
Last Friday, three new consular missions were inaugurated by respectively Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Burkina Faso. The opening of these new African consulates in the Sahara represents fresh diplomatic victories scored by Morocco which is gaining growing international support for its territorial integrity.
This positive development comes as the Kingdom braces to mark the 45th anniversary of the historic Green March which has enabled the country to recover its sovereignty over its southern provinces that were under Spanish occupation.
Currently, the province of Laayoune hosts the consulates of the Union of the Comoros, Gabon, Central African Republic, Sao Tome & Principe, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, in addition to Eswatini and Zambia, which opened on Monday their embassies in Rabat.
Côte d’Ivoire was the first African country to open an honorary consulate in summer 2019 in Laayoune, before upgrading its status to Consulate General in February 2020.
Since then, the southern Moroccan cities of Laâyoune and Dakhla have witnessed the inaugurations of 15 consular missions of brotherly African countries and friends of Morocco.