{"id":49689,"date":"2026-11-02T07:45:27","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T05:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=49689"},"modified":"2026-11-02T07:45:27","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T05:45:27","slug":"un-peacekeeping-mission-in-western-sahara-ends-after-35-years","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/un-peacekeeping-mission-in-western-sahara-ends-after-35-years\/","title":{"rendered":"UN peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara ends after 35 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The 35-year-old United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in the Western Sahara region will come to an end after the Security Council failed to renew its mandate, the UN \u200bChief said on Sunday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Morocco, which claims the Western Sahara as its \u200cown, welcomed the decision, while its opponents in the Algeria-backed Polisario Front expressed concern.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Polisario Front has been seeking an independent state in Western Sahara since former colonial power Spain left \u200bin 1976.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>A peacekeeping mission, known as UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, has been in place there \u200bsince a UN brokered ceasefire in 1991.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>November 1 would mark the start \u2060of the \u201cliquidation phase\u201d of the mission, with assets transported back to troop-contributing countries, \u200bUN Chief\u00a0Antonio Guterres said in a statement.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The end of the peacekeeping mission comes \u200ba year after the UN Security Council adopted a United States drafted resolution that accepted Rabat&#8217;s plan to give the territory autonomy<\/div>\n<div>under Moroccan sovereignty as the &#8220;most feasible&#8221; solution to the conflict.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43319,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-49689","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"UN peacekeeping mission in the Western Sahara region will come to an end","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49691,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49689\/revisions\/49691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=49689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}