The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara ceased operations on Sunday after 35 years, after the Security Council failed to renew its mandate. November 1 marked the start of the mission's liquidation phase, the UN said, with a smaller team overseeing the return of assets belonging to troop-contributing countries and the disposal of UN equipment.

The mission, known as MINURSO, was established in 1991 following a UN-brokered ceasefire. Its original task was to monitor that ceasefire and to organise a referendum on self-determination for the territory. That vote never took place, because the parties could never agree on who should be eligible to vote: Morocco wanted the voter list to include Sahrawis living in the territory it controls, while the Polisario Front insisted on using Spain's colonial census.

How the mandate expired

The end came after a standoff in the Security Council. Russia vetoed a draft US resolution that would have supported Morocco's demand for sovereignty over Western Sahara and wound down the peacekeeping mission. A rival Russian resolution to extend the mission was then voted down, leaving the force without a new mandate and bringing its operations to an abrupt end.

Divided reactions

Morocco welcomed the non-renewal. Its royal palace called the mission an instrument to internationalise the dispute and described its ending as a significant development towards withdrawing the Western Sahara issue from consideration by the Security Council.

The Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state in the territory, called the decision unacceptable and said it was concerned at the deadlock in the Security Council meeting. Algeria, which backs the Polisario, said it profoundly regretted the non-renewal and criticised what it called the excessive bias of the US draft resolution.

A dispute that outlasted the mission

Western Sahara is a desert territory the size of Colorado along Africa's north-western Atlantic coast, rich in minerals and fisheries. Once ruled by Spain, it is claimed by both Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front. Morocco administers nearly all of the disputed territory, except for a narrow strip known as the free zone east of a Moroccan-built sand wall.

After Morocco annexed the territory in 1975, the dispute escalated into an armed conflict that lasted more than 15 years and claimed more than 16,000 lives on both sides, according to the French Senate. The Polisario Front, operating from refugee camps in the Algerian city of Tindouf, aims to establish an independent Sahrawi Republic, while bringing the territory under its full sovereignty has been a central objective of Morocco's foreign policy for decades.

What happens now

As the mission ends, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged maximum restraint, citing concern about the security situation and the risk of escalation. The Polisario withdrew from the ceasefire in 2020, and the territory has since seen tensions and low-intensity hostilities, while Morocco and Algeria, which severed diplomatic relations in 2021, remain at odds. With the peacekeepers gone, the question is whether restraint holds in a dispute that has already outlasted a 35-year mission.