Moroccan authorities "violently" put down peaceful protests in Western Sahara earlier this week, Western Sahara human rights activist Aminatou Haidar said Wednesday.

The crackdown on the two protests was Rabat's "response" to a request made by EU president Herman Van Rompuy at an EU-Morocco summit in Spain on Sunday that Morocco make progress on human rights, she said in a statement.

Haidar said "Moroccan police and secret service agents violently repressed a protest" staged Monday in Laayoune, the capital of the disputed, mineral-rich territory, on Tuesday as well as another held Monday in the town of Fajla.

Human rights activists Ennaama Asfaria and Sabbar Brahim were among the "many" people who were injured during Tuesday's protest, she added.

Asfaria, the vice-president of the Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights in Western Sahara, "received strong blows throughout his body that left visible marks".

Brahim, the secretary general of the Saharawi Association of Victims of Serious Violations of Human Rights by the Moroccan State (ASVDH), suffered "an open wound on his head and serious bruising in his kidneys".

Haidar, who has a Spanish residency permit, also said police blocked access to a hospital where victims of the police repression had sought medical aid.

Van Rompuy said during the EU-Morocco summit held in Granada in southern Spain that the bloc supported UN efforts "for a just, lasting and mutually acceptable solution" in Western Sahara, where some activists demand independence.

"We also wish for improvements to the situation of human rights and their defenders on this issue," he added.

Haidar staged a 32-day hunger strike late last year at an airport on Spain's Canary Islands after Moroccan authorities denied her entry to her native Western Sahara because she refused to declare her nationality as Moroccan on an official form.

Morocco annexed the Western Sahara following the hasty withdrawal of colonial power Spain in the dying days of the regime of right-wing dictator Francisco Franco, sparking a war with the Algeria-backed Polisario Front movement.

The two sides agreed a ceasefire in 1991, but UN-sponsored talks on its future have since made no headway.

Morocco has pledged to grant the phosphate-rich territory widespread autonomy, but rules out independence. The Polisario Front wants a referendum on self-determination, with independence as one of the options.