Algerian Radio
The European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH) has deplored the absence of a permanent international human rights monitoring mechanism in Western Sahara, emphasizing that the current mandate of MINURSO, limited to supervising the ceasefire, does not allow for independent documentation of alleged violations or sufficient protection for the Sahrawi populations living under Moroccan occupation.
In a report entitled "Western Sahara, 50 Years Under Occupation," the fruit of an international fact-finding mission conducted in 2026, the association asserts that "this shortcoming creates a protection vacuum and considerably complicates the documentation work of international organizations and independent observers."
Recalling that the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), created in 1991 to supervise the ceasefire and prepare for a self-determination referendum, has never organized this consultation, the ELDH maintains that this situation of "prolonged political deadlock" has been accompanied for several decades by recurring allegations of human rights violations affecting the Sahrawi population.
The document indeed provides an overview of the allegations of human rights violations in occupied Western Sahara and highlights the persistent obstacles to independent international monitoring of the territory.
The investigators specifically looked into cases of arbitrary detention, politically motivated prosecutions, infringements on the right to a fair trial, allegations of torture and ill-treatment, as well as restrictions on the freedoms of expression, association, and assembly.
The report of this mission, which brought together several European lawyers, academics, and human rights defenders, also examines more structural issues such as alleged discrimination, demographic changes in the territory, the plundering of natural resources by Morocco, and the specific situation of Sahrawi human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, women, children, and victims' families.
The information presented in the report is primarily based on a series of online interviews conducted between February and March 2026. However, for security reasons, the identities of the interviewees are not disclosed in this document.
This document relies on testimonies gathered from victims, former detainees, families of the disappeared, lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, and Sahrawi civil society organizations.
The report's authors also note difficulties in accessing Western Sahara, security and administrative constraints, as well as the impossibility of conducting in-person interviews in areas under Moroccan control.
Through this publication, the ELDH intends to fuel the international debate on the situation in Western Sahara and contribute to better legal documentation of alleged human rights violations in a territory whose status remains, more than half a century after the start of the conflict, one of the United Nations' main unresolved disputes.
