Sahara, now or never

Statement by Professor Rafael Esparza, expert on Sahara and Maghreb issues, before the Fourth Committee on the Sahara of the United Nations in New York, United States.

Mr President, 

The controversy over the Moroccan Sahara is at a crucial juncture in the search for a definitive solution, and the United Nations must consider adopting a resolution which, recognising its initial error in its approach to decolonisation vis-à-vis reincorporation into Morocco, accepts the Moroccan proposal for autonomy for the territory. 

The international community must be aware of how it was deceived from the outset by false information created by the Polisario. Three examples, among many others, are: that the refugee camps were created at the end of 1975; that there was a mass exodus of the Sahrawi population at the end of 1975 and 1976; and that the territory was left almost uninhabited and was subsequently occupied by Moroccan settlers. 

Today we know for certain that the camps had been prepared since the end of 1973, occupied by Sahrawi-Algerians and a few Sahrawis who left the territory in the early 1970s, after the assassination of Basiri. 

We also know that fewer than 20,000 people from the Sahara territory arrived in the camps in the mid-1970s, many of them forcibly, including those captured in Polisario attacks on some towns in southern Morocco. 

It is also recognised today that the majority of the Sahrawi population continued to live in the territory handed over by Spain. Since then, this indigenous population has increased with the return of refugees (AIDIN), who left the camps in isolated cases from 1976 onwards and, from 1988 onwards, after the Algerian-Polisario repressions, in large numbers. 

This exodus continues today. 

Most of those who returned were Spanish speakers who had been persecuted since the beginning of the Polisario Front due to Algeria's policy of control over the nascent organisation. In addition, many members of the Polisario leadership came from southern Morocco and Mauritania. 

Nor is it pointed out that a large part of the so-called Moroccan settlers belong to the population that in 1958 left or was expelled from the territory, and another large part of these were members of tribes that historically belonged to the territory of the Moroccan Sahara before it was amputated by Franco-Spanish colonialism. 

We can now say with certainty that there are no more than 50,000 people living in the camps, of whom fewer than 15,000 can prove their origin in the 1974 Spanish census. The Algerian-Polisario refusal to conduct a census in the camps confirms my words. 

Mr President... 

It is now up to the United Nations to issue a resolution that reflects the new reality of the Sahara dispute, articulating a solution based on the recognition of the territory's autonomy within the Kingdom of Morocco and ensuring that all parties involved, in future negotiations, all Sahrawis are represented: Polisario, the Movement Saharawi for Peace (MSP), tribal leaders and elected officials in the Sahara, regardless of where they are located, as the decisions that will be taken will affect them fundamentally. 

New York, 9 October 2025 

Rafael Esparza Machín 

President of ACAMA 

Association for Canarian-Moroccan Cooperation and Friendship