Bloody clashes erupted between police and pro-independence protesters in Western Sahara, a human rights group said Monday, as the U.N. envoy wrapped up his latest visit to the disputed territory.

Dozens of civilians required hospital treatment, including women and children, after police moved to break up a "peaceful protest" in the territory's main city Laayoune on Saturday, the Moroccan Human Rights Association (AMDH) said.

Moroccan police drove back 400 African migrants who tried to rush across the country's border into Spain on Thursday, an official said.

It was the latest in a wave of desperate bids by Africans to reach Europe that have left hundreds dead and police and migrants injured.

A few dozen Moroccans staged a symbolic "kiss-in" Saturday in support of three teenagers arrested for posting pictures on Facebook of two of them smooching.

Only around a dozen couples actually locked lips in the gathering outside parliament, but the demonstrators insisted they had defended the right to public displays of affection in Morocco's conservative society.

A U.N. envoy on the Western Sahara conflict is on a new mission to break the deadlock over the territory and is to have talks with Moroccan leaders, the U.N. said Thursday.

The envoy, Christopher Ross, is also to return to Western Sahara which Morocco took over in 1975 following a Spanish withdrawal, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI appointed a new Islamist-led government on Thursday ending a months-long crisis triggered by the defection of a key coalition partner, a minister told Agence France Presse.

The king "has just appointed the new government" at a ceremony at the palace in Rabat, said Justice Minister Mustafa Ramid, a member of the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party whose leader, Abdelila Benkirane, remains prime minister.

Amnesty International on Thursday urged Morocco to immediately drop what it called "absurd charges" against a teenage couple arrested after a photo of them kissing was posted on Facebook.

The case has sparked outrage, with activists threatening to lock lips in a group "kiss-in" outside parliament on Saturday in protest.

Three Moroccan teenagers arrested for posting photos of themselves kissing on Facebook were released to their parents on Monday ahead of their trial for breaching public decency, judicial sources said.

The young couple and a male friend who took the photos had been held in a juvenile detention center in the northern city of Nador since Thursday, as their arrest sparked outrage on social media.

Moroccan police have arrested a teenage boy and girl for posting a photo on Facebook of them kissing, with the incident provoking a slew of copycats, a rights organization said Friday.

"It involves a teenage boy and his girlfriend. They were arrested on Thursday for violating public decency by posting a photo of them kissing" in the northeastern town of Nador, said Chakib al-Khayari, president of the Rif Association of Human Rights.

The United States expressed concern Wednesday over Morocco's decision to charge a journalist with aiding "terrorism" after he posted a link to an al-Qaida video.

Ali Anouzla, director of the Arabic version of independent news website Lakome, was arrested on September 17 after his website posted a link to the video attributed to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the extremist network's North African affiliate.

Until three months ago, petrol smuggling literally drove Morocco's neglected eastern region, where the subsidised liquid smuggled in from Algeria fuelled the local economy.

But in June, Algiers took drastic measures to curtail the illegal trade, clamping down on traffic across its border with Morocco, which has officially been closed since 1994.