Oxfam has called for the immediate appointment of a new UN personal envoy for Western Sahara to restart the peace process without any further delay.

Oxfam in Algeria Country Director, Haissam Minkara, made the call in reaction to the United Nations Security Council’s renewal of the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSU).

The Western Sahara conflict is an ongoing face-off between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el‑Hamra and Rio de Oro (POLISARIO Front), which is composed largely of the Sahrawis, and the Kingdom of Morocco.

The conflict is dominated by unarmed civil campaigns of the POLISARIO Front and their self-proclaimed SADR state to gain fully recognised independence for Western Sahara.

Development Diaries understands that since 1975, Algeria has hosted a large proportion of the Sahrawi population in refugee camps near the city of Tindouf.

The majority of Sahrawi population are understood to be dependent on humanitarian aid to sustain basic needs such as access to food, water, and shelter.

‘Oxfam calls for the immediate appointment of a new UN personal envoy for Western Sahara to restart the peace process without any further delay’, Minkara said in a statement.

‘After 18 months without an envoy, the positive momentum towards a political solution that former Personal Envoy, Horst Koehler, had begun has been lost, and the sense of frustration and abandonment within the Sahrawi refugee camps continues to grow’.

Minkara further said, ‘In light of the conflict’s 45th anniversary, Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee crisis are an important reminder that if the international community does not actively pursue solutions to secure sustainable peace and security, Sahrawi refugees are set to live in deepening hunger, poverty, and further denial of their fundamental rights’.

Source: Oxfam

Photo source: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid