A draft United Nations report dated October 1 warns that child malnutrition is rising in the Tindouf camps of southwestern Algeria. The agencies feeding refugees still don’t know how many people live there. That’s not new. The UN has flagged the problem for two decades.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ report says acute malnutrition, stunting and anemia among children have continued to climb, raising concern about a possible food emergency. Around 30,000 children under five remain at risk because routine immunization programs have been disrupted. Food insecurity touches an estimated 80% of the camp population, and the report says assistance falls short of what households need.
The Count Nobody Will Conduct
Humanitarian planning for the five camps near Tindouf rests on a figure of 90,000 vulnerable Sahrawi refugees. It’s an estimate, not a census. UNHCR says it will keep using 90,000 until a full registration exercise takes place.
The paper trail is long. A 2006 UN report said agencies had cut assistance to 90,000 beneficiaries and would use that figure “until a comprehensive registration exercise” could be held. A 2009 UN document said accurate statistics on refugee numbers were unavailable. A 2017 document repeated the figure “pending the registration of the refugees in the camps near Tindouf.” In 2018, UNHCR called it the official planning figure for the most vulnerable and stressed that it isn’t a verified population count.
Without registration, agencies struggle to assess needs and plan food, health, nutrition and education services. They’re buying food, medicine and vaccines for a population whose size and makeup remain unverified. UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization all operate under that constraint, while the WFP works with the Algerian Red Crescent on food distribution.
Who Resists Registration
The question is politically charged. Morocco has repeatedly pressed for registration, while Algeria and the Polisario Front have opposed or resisted the calls. At a 2015 UN discussion, Morocco’s representative said the international community should be able to establish “the number and origin” of people in the camps.
Former Polisario officials Hamada El Bihi and Mustafa Salma have alleged that population figures were inflated. They argue only about 20% of the camp population is of Sahrawi origin, with the rest allegedly including Tuareg from Niger, Mali, Chad, Libya and Algeria. Those are allegations. Without a census, they can’t be confirmed or refuted.
The pressure hasn’t eased. In 2026, several speakers before the UN Special Committee on Decolonization again called for registration. Côte d’Ivoire said it was concerned about camp conditions and urged a census. Chile reiterated that UNHCR should be permitted to register the population.
Funding Gap
The money isn’t arriving either. The 2025 Sahrawi Refugee Response Plan received $57.9 million of the $104 million requested. The 2026-2027 plan seeks $179.3 million, including $89.6 million for 2026. By June 30, it had received $15.2 million, or 17% of the 2026 request.
The education system remains fragile and leans heavily on refugee volunteer teachers.
What Comes Next
Guterres’ report calls for renewed confidence-building measures. His Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, working with UNHCR, proposed voluntary “familiarization visits” for individual Sahrawi refugees to travel to Laayoune and Dakhla, see conditions in Morocco firsthand and learn about Morocco’s Autonomy Plan. The idea is to let refugees weigh the reality in Morocco’s southern regions against what they hear inside the camps.
Guterres urged the parties to negotiate in good faith and said protecting the population can’t be separated from the humanitarian and political dimensions of the dispute. He said the Autonomy Plan can represent “the most feasible outcome.”
Why This Matters: Aid agencies are spending scarce money on a population they can’t count, while children in the camps grow more malnourished and funding falls short. A registration exercise would give donors and agencies verified data to plan against, but the parties running the camps have resisted it for years. From a security and governance standpoint, no outside body can confirm who is being fed, who is being counted, or how aid is used without a verified census. Until that changes, the response will keep running on an estimate that’s now more than two decades old, and the youngest refugees bear the greatest cost.