Tan-Tan – The humanitarian situation in the Tindouf camps in southwestern Algeria remains a growing concern, with the latest United Nations draft report warning of rising malnutrition among children and continued shortages in humanitarian assistance. At the same time, the population of the camps has still not undergone the comprehensive registration and census the United Nations has repeatedly sought, leaving aid agencies to work with estimates rather than verified population data.
The camps are officially used as the basis for humanitarian planning for about 90,000 vulnerable Sahrawi refugees. However, the figure is a planning estimate, not the result of a formal census. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said it will continue to use the 90,000 figure until a full registration exercise is conducted.
The unresolved question over the camps’ actual population has consequences beyond statistics. Without reliable information on who lives in the camps and how many people require assistance, humanitarian agencies face difficulties in accurately assessing needs and planning services, particularly in areas such as food, health, nutrition, and education.
Tindouf’s deepening crisis
The October 1 report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres highlights the scale of those needs.
UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO) continue to provide assistance to refugees in the five camps near Tindouf. Yet the 2025 Sahrawi Refugee Response Plan received only $57.9 million (MAD 532.7 million) of the $104 million (MAD 956.8 million) requested, while the 2026-2027 plan is seeking $179.3 million (MAD 1.65 billion), including $89.6 million (MAD 824.3 million) for 2026.
By June 30, only $15.2 million (MAD 139.8 million), or 17% of the amount requested for 2026, had been received.
The funding gap comes as conditions in the camps deteriorate. Guterres’ report says rates of acute malnutrition, stunting, and anemia among children have continued to rise, raising concerns about a possible food emergency. It also says around 30,000 children under five remain at risk because of disruptions to routine immunization programs.
Food insecurity affects an estimated 80% of the camp population, according to the report, while humanitarian assistance remains insufficient to fully meet household needs.
The report also points to the vulnerability of the camps’ education system, which continues to rely heavily on refugee volunteer teachers.
These conditions have renewed attention to the longstanding dispute over registration.
For years, the UN has called for the registration of the refugee population in the camps. In the absence of such registration, UNHCR and WFP have continued to base much of their humanitarian planning on the 90,000 figure. A UN report in 2006 explained that assistance had been reduced to 90,000 beneficiaries and that the figure would be used for planning “until a comprehensive registration exercise” could be conducted.
A 2017 UN document similarly said humanitarian assistance remained based on a planning figure of 90,000 “pending the registration of the refugees in the camps near Tindouf.”
UNHCR has also repeatedly stressed that the 90,000 figure should not be confused with a verified population count. In 2018, the agency said the figure represented its official planning figure for the most vulnerable Sahrawi refugees and would remain in use “until a full-fledged registration exercise is carried out.”
A census left unresolved
The absence of a census has remained politically sensitive because of disagreements on the composition and size of the camp population.
Morocco has repeatedly called for registration, while Algeria and the Polisario Front have opposed or resisted such calls. In a 2015 UN discussion, Morocco’s representative raised concern over the lack of registration and argued that the international community should be able to establish “the number and origin” of the people living in the camps.
More recently, representatives and former Polisario figures have gone further, alleging that the population figures have been inflated and that a significant portion of those living in the camps are not Sahrawis. Former Polisario officials Hamada El Bihi and Mustafa Salma have argued that only about 20% of the camp population is of Sahrawi origin, with the remainder allegedly including Tuareg from Niger, Mali, Chad, Libya, and Algeria.
The dispute over the population count has thus persisted for decades.
UN records have repeatedly linked the absence of registration to difficulties in determining humanitarian needs. A 2009 UN document noted that accurate statistics on the number of refugees in Tindouf were unavailable and that, in the absence of registration, UNHCR assistance was targeting 90,000 of the most vulnerable people.
The issue has also continued to attract international attention. In 2026, several speakers before the UN Special Committee on Decolonization again called for registration of the Tindouf population. Côte d’Ivoire, for example, said it was concerned about the situation in the camps and called for a census covering the people living there, while Chile reiterated the need for UNHCR to be permitted to register the camp population.
The issue is particularly significant given the worsening humanitarian indicators Guterres has outlined.
The UN report says the World Food Programme continues to work with the Algerian Red Crescent and other partners to provide food assistance, but humanitarian aid is not meeting families’ needs because of insufficient funding. At the same time, rising malnutrition and anemia among children are placing additional pressure on already limited health and nutrition services.
The absence of a verified population count makes the challenge more difficult. Aid agencies must determine how much food, medicine, vaccines, education support, and other assistance is needed without having a comprehensive registration database establishing the number and individual profiles of people living in the camps.
A wider political push
For Guterres, the humanitarian question is part of a wider need to rebuild confidence between the parties. His latest report calls for renewed confidence-building measures and notes that the humanitarian agencies continue to assist refugees despite the unresolved political dispute.
He also backed new measures designed to reconnect Sahrawi refugees with the wider territory. In cooperation with UNHCR, his Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, proposed voluntary “familiarization visits” allowing individual Sahrawi refugees to travel to Laayoune and Dakhla to see conditions in Morocco firsthand and learn more about the details of Morocco’s Autonomy Plan.
The initiative would give refugees an opportunity to see for themselves the development and daily realities of the southern regions of Morocco, rather than relying solely on information available inside the Tindouf camps. The proposal also reflects the UN’s effort to create channels of contact between Sahrawi refugees and the wider territory after years of separation.
Yet the humanitarian situation in Tindouf remains unresolved. UNHCR continues to use 90,000 as its planning figure for the most vulnerable Sahrawi refugees, despite other UN-linked assessments producing higher estimates of the overall camp population. Meanwhile, the absence of a formal registration exercise has left the actual size and composition of the camp population unverified.
Guterres concludes his report by urging the parties to pursue negotiations in good faith and warning that the humanitarian and political dimensions of the dispute cannot be separated from the need to protect the population. Morocco’s Autonomy Plan proposal remains at the center of the latest UN-backed political push, with the Secretary-General noting that it can represent “the most feasible outcome” to the dispute.
For the refugees living in Tindouf, however, the basic question of how many people are actually in the camps, and who they are, remains unanswered. The continued absence of a verified population count has complicated the delivery and planning of humanitarian assistance, while repeated calls for registration have yet to produce a definitive census.
Until that question is resolved through a transparent registration process, the international humanitarian response will continue to rely on an estimate that has been used for more than two decades rather than on verified population data.
