THE UN security council will urge Morocco and the Polisario Front to return to peace talks to end the Western Sahara conflict this week.

It is expected that a draft resolution will call for the resumption of negotiations ahead of today’s vote on extending the UN mission observing a fragile ceasefire in the region.

The mission, known as Minurso, has seen UN peacekeepers monitoring Western Sahara come under fire from the Algerian-backed Polisario Front which has been engaged in a decades-long struggle for independence from Morocco.

Western Sahara was promised a referendum in 1991 yet, 27 years later, it has still not taken place.

It is known as Africa’s last colony following an invasion by Moroccan forces in 1976.

Hundreds of thousands of Sahrawi people fled with many still in refugee camps in neighbouring Algeria. 

Morocco, which rejects demands for independence, is accused of human rights abuses and has built a 1,700km wall to separate the region surrounded by land mines.

The Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), declared by the Polisario Front in 1976, is a full member of the African Union.