UN extends mandate for UN peacekeepers in Western Sahara, with Algeria protesting over human rights

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has voted to extend the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the  Western Sahara for another year Thursday with Algeria refusing to vote in protest at the resolution’s failure to include a reference to monitoring human rights in the disputed north African territory. The vote was 12 countries in favor, Russia and Mozambique abstaining, and Algeria, which supports the Polisario Front, one of the parties to the nearly 50-year dispute, not voting. Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony in 1975, sparking a conflict with the Algerian-backed pro-independence Polisario Front. The U.N. brokered a 1991 cease-fire and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor the truce.