UN Closes Western Sahara Mission After Russian Veto
The Security Council let the MINURSO mandate lapse, leaving Morocco and the Polisario Front without UN observers for the 1991 ceasefire.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara ceased to exist at midnight on Saturday, Oct. 31. Russia vetoed a US draft resolution, and a rival Russian text extending the mission to Oct. 31, 2027 failed to win the nine votes it needed on the 15-member Security Council. With no renewal, the mission, known as MINURSO, entered liquidation on Nov. 1.
Western Sahara is a territory in northwest Africa that Morocco largely controls and the Polisario Front claims as its own state. MINURSO, created in 1991, monitored the ceasefire between them and was meant to organize an independence referendum that was never held.
At the end it had about 160 military observers and 180 civilian and support staff. It worked out of Laayoune, spread across nine team sites on both sides of the sand berm that divides the territory (four to the west, five to the east), plus a liaison office in Tindouf. Twenty of its personnel died over 35 years.
The US delegate said his draft "moved the 50-year conflict forward" and that the status quo is unacceptable. Russia's delegate called his veto "a life-saving veto, so to speak."
Secretary-General António Guterres said through his spokesperson that the UN remains committed to a "just, lasting and mutually acceptable" political solution and reaffirmed the people's right to self-determination. Fighting resumed in 2020.
What changes is who is watching. With no observers on either side of the berm, no neutral party can verify what happens there. Staffan de Mistura, the secretary-general's personal envoy, is still pursuing diplomacy, now without a mission on the ground. A small UN team will handle the wind-down, which the organization says requires the full cooperation of the parties.
