Articles

The Missing Voices of Western Sahara, by Zahra Rahmouni – 15 December 2025

At the UN’s annual Western Sahara debate, everyone gets heard except the Sahrawis themselves.

From Africa is a Country

Every year in October, sweater weather settles in, coffee orders are syrup-laden, and the United Nations building in New York transforms into a stage for tense deliberations over the renewal of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) peacekeeping mission.

This year, the Security Council (UNSC) adopted Resolution 2797, renewing MINURSO’s mandate for a 35th year, but with a shift… the council formally endorsed Morocco’s 2007 Autonomy Plan as “the most feasible solution,” rather than maintaining emphasis on a full self-determination referendum.

I followed the international news cycle, and something struck me about the coverage. I spent considerable time looking for Sahrawi voices covering the diplomatic battle unfolding at the UN, but, outside of a few Spanish media outlets, I was largely unsuccessful.

There were “regional experts” and “observers of the Maghreb” aplenty. Some were knowledgeable, others partisan. But it was unbelievably difficult to hear from Sahrawis themselves, either in the occupied territories, the liberated zones, the Tindouf refugee camps in southwestern Algeria, or elsewhere. Despite my best efforts, I could not find the opinions of the people whose futures were being negotiated in Manhattan.

Very obvious questions then naturally emerge: “Why are Sahrawi voices absent?” And “What do Sahrawis, those most directly concerned by the political negotiations, think about what is happening?”

So, I reached out to various activists and put those very questions to them.

Tiba Chagaf, a 50-year-old Sahrawi who lives between the Tindouf refugee camps and Spain, revealed that, “In the week leading up to the vote on the resolution, the Sahrawi people took to the streets in massive demonstrations, rejecting any proposal that does not guarantee their right to decide their own future.”

For Chagaf, a prominent figure in Sahrawi cultural life, “accepting autonomy after 50 years of resistance in exile is out of the question.” He argues that the resolution sets it up so that “someone gives something they don’t own to someone who has no right over it.”

[READ THE REST]

Zahra Rahmouni is an independent French-Algerian journalist who covers Algerian political, economic and social news for several international media outlets.

, , , , ,
Views: 11
More content from this blog
, , , , ,