A long-running prop in Algeria’s rhetoric on Western Sahara collapsed this week, as the United Nations confirmed that MINURSO, its peacekeeping mission in the territory, has formally entered its liquidation phase after 35 years on the ground.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the withdrawal would begin within days, following the Security Council’s failure to renew the mission’s mandate. Under the plan, some 160 military observers will be repatriated to their home countries, while roughly 180 civilian staff will see their posts wound down. Thirteen sites and facilities are due to be closed and handed over, equipment and communications systems withdrawn, outstanding contracts and financial obligations settled, and the mission’s archives transferred under standard UN procedure. MINURSO’s outgoing head, Alexander Ivanko, is expected to travel to Rabat to coordinate the withdrawal timeline and logistics with Moroccan officials.
The announcement was quickly seized on in Morocco. Adil Tchikito, head of the Moroccan League for the Defence of Human Rights, posted a mocking message on Facebook addressed to Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf, recalling that Attaf had argued only last year that the international community did not recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara, pointing to MINURSO’s continued presence on the ground as evidence. With the mission now folding, Tchikito argued, that line of reasoning no longer holds any water.
Tchikito went further, asking sarcastically how the Algerian minister would now explain the situation to what he described as his domestic audience, and referencing the populations held in the Tindouf camps, whom he accused Algiers of mobilizing around a narrative he said was growing harder to sustain as the facts on the ground shift.
The exchange unfolds against a broader backdrop of diplomatic momentum favoring Morocco’s position on the Sahara, with a growing number of countries voicing support in recent months for the autonomy plan Rabat has put forward as the basis for a settlement. The confirmed end of the UN mission’s three-and-a-half-decade presence marks a fresh milestone in the dossier, and leaves Algerian diplomacy facing renewed pressure to recast its messaging on Western Sahara going forward.
