Status of Moroccan Settlers
Among the Western Saharan population there is a very significant number of people who have resettled in Western Sahara from Morocco (‘Moroccan settlers’) or who were born in Western Sahara, the children of Moroccan settlers. Some estimate that Moroccan settlers and their descendents now constitute a majority of the Western Sahara population although estimates vary. For some years, the SADR government has stated that it is willing in principle to allow Moroccan settlers to vote in the long stalled United Nations (MINURSO) supervised referendum on Western Sahara independence or integration with Morocco.
On 10 April 2007, the Polisario Front - the government of SADR – presented its “Proposal of the Polisario Front for a mutually acceptable political solution assuring the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara”. In the 2007 Proposal the Polisario Front went further to reassure Moroccan settlers that they will continue to have a future in Western Sahara if the proposed referendum takes place and results in Sahrawi independence. Paragraph 9 of the Proposal states that in the context of Sahrawi independence, the Sahrawi government would provide:
guarantees regarding the status and rights and obligations of the Moroccan population of Western Sahara, including their participation in the political, economic and social life of the territory of Western Sahara. In that regard, the Sahrawi State would accord Sahrawi nationality to every Moroccan citizen legally established in the territory who requests it.
In the absence of a comprehensive Sahrawi nationality law, the citizenship of settlers who came from Morocco or the smaller number who came to Western Sahara when it was a Spanish colony and province - and indeed that of ethnic Sahrawis themselves will remain unclear.
The future status of Western Sahara remains the subject of UN sponsored negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario Front. Future developments in Sahrawi nationality law (and indeed its continued existence) may well be shaped by the outcome of those negotiations.
In March 2013, Hassan Serghouchni, an old Moroccan political prisoner in the 1980's residing in Oujda, sent a letter to the Sahrawi Republic embassy in Algiers asking for the concession of the Sahrawi nationality, being the first Moroccan to demand it. In October 2012 Serghouchni had renounced to the Moroccan nationality.
Read more about this topic: Sahrawi Nationality Law
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