UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres presented a new report on the Sahara in which he didn’t shy away from pinning responsibility on the polisario for hindering the peace process through its obstructing the mission of the UN mission in the region, the MINURSO. The UN chief called on the Polisario to comply with its commitments under the 1991 ceasefire agreement by allowing the MINURSO to conduct its ceasefire monitoring role. Antonio Guterres said in his report that the Polisario Front has failed to “comply with requests by MINURSO to resolve” some violations, warning that MINURSO still faces challenges due to the Polisario’s violations east of the berm in the region. The same UN report lambasted the Polisario for its human rights violations in the camps it administers in south-western Algeria where thousands of Sahraouis are held against their will unable to join their homeland in Morocco. The UN Secretary General noted the scale of protests and sit-ins in the Tindouf camps in 2019 while deploring the lack of the freedom of movement in the camps.

Source: The North Africa Journal October 11, 2019 01:30 UTC