UN Peacekeeping Mission in Western Sahara Ends After 35 Years, Dispute Unresolved

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara ceased operations on Sunday, ending 35 years of international monitoring in a vast desert territory whose future remains unresolved. The mission did not end because the dispute was settled. It ended because the United Nations Security Council could not agree on what should replace it, and its mandate simply ran out.

The mission, known as MINURSO, was created in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front and to organise a referendum on self-determination for the territory. That referendum never took place. Morocco and the Polisario could not agree on who was entitled to vote: Morocco wanted voter lists to include Sahrawis living in the territory it controls, while the Polisario insisted on Spain's colonial census, arguing that a broader list would tilt the result towards integration with Morocco. The disagreement froze the settlement plan, but the peacekeepers stayed, patrolling a ceasefire line and reporting on conditions in a territory roughly the size of Colorado, rich in minerals and fisheries, along Africa's north-western Atlantic coast.

The final impasse came on Friday in New York. According to the Associated Press, Russia vetoed a draft resolution put forward by the United States that would have supported Morocco's demand for sovereignty over Western Sahara and ended the peacekeeping mission next year. A rival Russian resolution to extend the mission was then voted down. With neither text adopted, the mandate expired. “This 1 November 2026 marks the start of the liquidation period,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said in a statement, adding that a smaller team would oversee “the orderly transportation of assets belonging to troop-contributing countries to their respective nations, and the appropriate disposal of equipment belonging to the United Nations.”

Reactions split sharply along the lines of the dispute itself. Morocco's royal palace welcomed the non-renewal of the mission, calling it an “instrument to internationalize the dispute,” the Associated Press reported. The Polisario Front, which is backed by Algeria, called the outcome “an unacceptable decision,” while Algeria's foreign ministry said it profoundly regretted the non-renewal and criticised what it called the “excessive bias” of the American draft resolution. The United Nations classifies Western Sahara as a “non-self-governing territory,” while critics of Moroccan control describe it as Africa's last colony. Morocco, which administers nearly all of the territory except a narrow strip east of a Moroccan-built sand wall, refers to it as its southern provinces and has made full sovereignty there a central objective of its foreign policy for decades, winning backing in recent years from a growing number of Western capitals, including Washington, Paris and London.

The human and institutional scale of what is being wound down is considerable. Twenty MINURSO personnel lost their lives during the mission, the Associated Press reported. The force was authorised to have 534 personnel, with a 2026–2027 budget of more than $62 million, and its top military contributors were Egypt, Ghana and Pakistan. Behind those figures lies a conflict that, after Morocco annexed the former Spanish territory in 1975, escalated into more than 15 years of armed conflict that claimed more than 16,000 lives on both sides, according to the French Senate. The Polisario, operating from refugee camps around Tindouf in Algeria, seeks an independent Sahrawi republic; it has seen its international support dwindle in recent years, even as Algeria, Russia and South Africa continue to back it.

What happens next is the question the Security Council's deadlock left unanswered. Secretary-General António Guterres “remains concerned about the security situation throughout the Territory and the risk of escalation of hostilities,” Dujarric said, and called on all sides to exercise maximum restraint and to respect and promote the rights of the people of Western Sahara. The warning is not abstract: the Polisario withdrew from the ceasefire in 2020 after clashes, and the territory has since seen tensions and low-intensity hostilities, the UN said last month. Western Sahara is also the major flashpoint in the rivalry between Morocco and Algeria, which severed diplomatic relations in 2021; Algiers, which arms, funds and hosts the Polisario, sees full Moroccan sovereignty as a major diplomatic defeat, and the end of the mission risks further straining ties and fuelling an arms race. For now, the peacekeepers are packing up. The dispute they were sent to help resolve remains exactly where it was — only now without them.