The United Nations ended its peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara after the United States and Russia blocked competing extension proposals, leaving the territory unmonitored for the first time since 1991.
The mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) expired on November 1 after a double veto in the Security Council. On Friday, neither Washington, an ally of Morocco, nor Moscow, a defender of the Polisario Front, could secure passage of their respective draft resolutions. The mission was left without legal authority to continue past midnight on Saturday.
The dispute over Western Sahara began more than 50 years ago with the end of Spanish colonial rule. Both Morocco and the Polisario Front have claimed the territory since then. The United Nations deployed the peacekeeping mission in 1991 to help organize a referendum on self-determination.
Morocco celebrated the outcome as a victory. Government spokesman Samir Belfqih called the mission a "remnant of a context already overcome." King Mohamed VI demanded that the UN withdraw "its personnel, its vehicles, its equipment and its symbols" from what he considers the "southern provinces of the kingdom."
The Polisario Front, which had applauded the Russian veto of the American resolution, expressed concern over the end of the mandate. It warned of "grave consequences for regional peace and security" from any Moroccan measure against the right to self-determination. Algeria, which hosts Polisario leaders and about 173,000 refugees in camps near Tindouf, also lamented the abrupt end of the mission.
The mission had 359 personnel deployed against an authorized strength of 534. It managed a five-kilometer-wide demilitarized buffer zone along the eastern side of the wall built by Morocco. The Polisario broke the 1991 ceasefire in 2020.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Sunday of the risk that the conflict would intensify. He called on all involved to exercise "utmost restraint." Irene Fernández-Molina, a professor at the University of Exeter, said: "We enter unknown territory." She described the closure as the biggest transformation of the status quo since the end of the Cold War. She predicted escalation by the Polisario, "because that is their only card."
Analysts warn of the potential for hostilities between Morocco and Algeria.
