I’m North African and I can’t find someone to explain this to me without being biased, especially since my country has issues with morroco.
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Spain controlled Western Sahara until 1975. Before that time, Morocco and Mauritania (both its northern and southern neighbor) claimed sovereignty over that territory. A nationalist movement called the “Polisario Front” also emerged, which claimed Western Sahara as an independent sovereign nation called “Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic”.
Spain left the region under the Madrid Accords, where it temporarily transferred administrative rule to both Morocco and Mauritania. The Polisario Front then fought with both countries in the area, and Mauritania withdrew its claim afterwards in 1979. Both the Polisario Front and Morocco were engaged in hostilities until 1991, when a UN backed ceasefire was initiated, pending a UN backed referendum.
Due to disputes by both sides on how to initiate the referendum, the referendum has never been held. Right now, Morocco controls the vast majority of Western Sahara, while the Polisario Front has been mostly exiled in nearby Algeria, leaving the entire region in legal limbo.
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