The United States made it clear it will no longer support a status quo that keeps Sahrawis trapped in the Polisario-controlled Tindouf camps for decades more, after a Russian veto blocked a US-drafted Security Council resolution that had the backing of 11 members.
In his explanation of vote, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz focused heavily on the human toll of prolonged deadlock.
He recalled that as far back as 2006, a UN Personal Envoy warned that continuing the impasse would condemn another generation of Sahrawis to grow up as refugees.
That generation has now grown up, Waltz noted, and many are themselves raising children in the same camps.
Citing the latest UN figures, he underlined the severity of conditions: nearly two-thirds of children under five suffer from anemia, one-third experience stunted growth, and only one in ten receives a minimally acceptable diet.
“That’s 50 years of displacement — an entire lifetime and then some,” Waltz said.
“We will not support a status quo that condemns all of them to another five decades.”
He added that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has described the current situation as “untenable, unsustainable, and genuinely, truly inhumane.”
The US representative placed this human reality against the long record of UN assessments that a referendum is not feasible.
Successive Secretaries-General and senior officials — from Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan to James Baker, Erik Jensen and Bernard Miyet — have for 30 years concluded that the original settlement plan cannot be implemented.
Waltz stressed that last year’s Resolution 2797 had finally established Morocco’s Autonomy Proposal as the basis for negotiations and launched a strategic review of MINURSO.
Three rounds of high-level talks had already begun addressing self-government, resource sharing, security arrangements, constitutional guarantees and transition.
With the mandate of MINURSO now ending as a result of the vote, the United States said it stands ready to work with the Secretary-General to ensure an orderly and stable drawdown that protects UN personnel and addresses legitimate security and humanitarian needs.
Washington also reaffirmed its commitment to continue working with Personal Envoy Staffan de Mistura and the parties toward a lasting political settlement.
The US position underscores a clear message that the international community cannot keep extending a framework that UN officials themselves have long said does not work, while another generation remains trapped in conditions the UN’s own refugee agency calls inhumane.
