UNITED NATIONS — The mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, known as MINURSO, expired at the close of Saturday, October 31, without a renewal. Resolution 2797, adopted in 2025, had extended the mandate only through October 31, 2026, and no replacement resolution was adopted before the deadline — the result of the double failure Awaaz Punjab reported on October 30, when Russia vetoed the US-drafted resolution and the Council then defeated Russia's rival draft.
Source: Reuters via Northland News Radio, Oct 30, 2026
The US draft, which would have extended the mission for another year while cementing Morocco's autonomy plan as the only basis for talks and scaling back its military component, received 11 votes in favour, three abstentions and one vote against — Russia's veto. The Council then defeated the rival Russian resolution for a straightforward one-year extension: it got three votes in favour and one against, with 11 abstentions, failing to reach the nine affirmative votes needed to pass, Reuters reported. The failed US text would also have removed the word 'Referendum' from the mission's name.
Source: Reuters via DevDiscourse, Oct 31, 2026
Morocco's royal palace welcomed the failure to renew the mission, saying its personnel and equipment should leave Western Sahara in the coming days, according to Reuters. Most of Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco but claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state. MINURSO, set up in 1991 to organise a referendum under a UN-brokered ceasefire, has 155 military personnel and was set to cost $62 million in the fiscal year that started in June, according to a UN Secretary-General report cited by Reuters. Yaani: $62 million is about $6.2 crore — roughly 620 lakh dollars for a year of the mission.
The humanitarian organisation Oxfam warned on October 31 that the Security Council's failure to renew the mandate was a major setback for the Sahrawi people. 'The loss of MINURSO's monitoring and de-escalation functions risks undermining security and stability, with serious consequences to civilians and prospects of a peaceful resolution,' Marco Di Cecco, Oxfam's country director in Algeria, who oversees its response in the Sahrawi refugee camps, said in a statement carried by the Sahrawi news agency SPS.
Source: Oxfam statement via SPS, Oct 31, 2026
What the expiry does and does not settle needs care. The mandate period has ended and, as of the early hours of November 1, the UN's published register of Security Council resolutions showed no replacement MINURSO resolution. That does not by itself confirm when or how the mission's personnel, vehicles and equipment will leave, and no formal UN operational-closure notice or withdrawal schedule had been published in the reports reviewed. A last-minute Council move also remains legally possible, even after the deadline has passed.
US Ambassador Michael Waltz said after the October 30 vote that a referendum had never taken place because of longstanding disagreements over voter eligibility, according to Reuters. What happens next turns on whether the Council returns to the file — with a new text both Washington and Moscow can let pass — or leaves a 35-year mission to wind down with no agreed replacement, while Morocco and the Polisario Front press opposite readings of the same deadlock.