The missing voices of Western Sahara

The missing voices of Western Sahara

Journalist Zahra Rahmouni examines who gets to speak about Western Sahara. Coverage of the UN’s annual debate, she argues, leans heavily on outside experts and observers while largely leaving out the Sahrawis whose future is being decided, and that exclusion makes a lasting settlement unlikely.

She frames the piece around Security Council Resolution 2797, which renewed MINURSO’s mandate and endorsed Morocco’s 2007 autonomy plan, and gives space to Sahrawis who protested any arrangement that does not guarantee self-determination. Activist Tiba Chagaf rejects autonomy after decades of exile, and Ahmedna Abdi Mebarak links the resolution to wider geopolitical bargains and points to how vague the autonomy plan actually is. Rahmouni also documents pressure on critics: alleged Pegasus spyware targeting a journalist, smear campaigns in Moroccan-aligned media, and disruption of pro-Sahrawi events in France.

Intimidation, geopolitics and dominant media narratives have not silenced Sahrawi voices, she concludes, but as long as Sahrawis are excluded from decisions about their own future, no solution will last.

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