New York (United Nations), 18 October 2026 (SPS) – The United Nations Headquarters in New York will host an artistic and humanitarian exhibition in late October entitled “50 Years, 50 Faces: Sahrawi Exile – A Life of Resilience”, highlighting the suffering of the Sahrawi people after five decades of forced displacement and exile amid the continued Moroccan occupation and the stalled decolonization process in Western Sahara.
The exhibition is a joint initiative of Oxfam International, the US for Western Sahara initiative, and Artists for Western Sahara, according to the platform Don’t Forget Western Sahara. It will feature 50 portraits accompanied by testimonies from Sahrawis born in refugee camps or who have experienced exile, aiming to highlight the human dimension of the Sahrawi cause.
The exhibition is scheduled to take place in the “1B Neck” corridor at UN Headquarters, coinciding with the UN Security Council’s discussions on the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The exhibition will give diplomats and representatives of UN member states an opportunity to hear personal accounts reflecting the impact of decades of exile and uncertainty on Sahrawi lives.
The initiative seeks to draw attention to the human consequences of the continued conflict and the denial of the Sahrawi people’s inalienable right to self-determination, more than three decades after MINURSO was established to organize a referendum in Western Sahara.
The organizers stress that the portraits and testimonies reflect the resilience of the Sahrawi people and their unwavering commitment to their legitimate rights. They also highlight the heavy human cost of the continued failure to reach a political solution and underscore the need to end colonialism in Western Sahara and enable the Sahrawi people to exercise their right to self-determination.
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