W. Sahara flare-up spells gloom for buffer zone businesses

Kamal Zerfi has long run a junkyard in a no-man’s land on the far edge of the Sahara desert. Then government soldiers came and things took a turn for the worse. Zerfi lives in a remote outpost of the Western Sahara region claimed by both Morocco and Polisario Front pro-independence rebels who recently revived their three-decade struggle. His auto- and scrapyard is located at the desolate truck stop of Guerguerat in a UN-patrolled buffer zone…