The United Nations envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, arrived on October 3 in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, to meet with officials of the Polisario Front.
Western Sahara, located on the Atlantic coast and bordered by Morocco, Mauritania, and Algeria, is considered a “non-self-governing territory” by the UN.
Morocco, which controls nearly 80% of this former Spanish colony, is proposing an autonomy plan under its sovereignty, while the Polisario separatists, supported by Algeria, are demanding a self-determination referendum, planned by the UN when a ceasefire was signed in 1991, but never materialized.
Staffan de Mistura is to meet with Polisario leader Brahim Ghali, according to the Sahrawi news agency SPS. This visit “is part of the preparation of a briefing” by the UN envoy for Western Sahara to the Security Council on October 16, the Polisario’s UN representative, Mohamed Sidi Omar, told the official Algerian news agency APS.
In early August, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” by the deterioration of the situation in Western Sahara, in a report requested by the UN General Assembly, in which he called for avoiding “any further escalation”.
The continuation of hostilities and the absence of a ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front mark a clear setback in the search for a political solution to this long-standing dispute.
Antonio Guterres, in a UN report.
This report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, was prepared before France announced at the end of July the strengthening of its support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara as the “sole basis” for resolving the conflict, which has angered Algiers.
With its rich mineral subsoil and its fishing coasts, Western Sahara is the only territory on the African continent whose post-colonial status remains in suspense. After nearly 30 years of ceasefire, hostilities between the Polisario and Morocco have resumed since mid-November 2020 following the deployment of Moroccan troops in a buffer zone in the far south of Western Sahara to dislodge separatists.
Appointed in October 2021, Staffan de Mistura has traveled to the region several times to meet with the various stakeholders without the political process resuming.
