The United Nations secretary-general has appointed Staffan de Mistura of Italy as his personal envoy for Western Sahara. The appointment comes after the post went vacant for over two years. Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and international law. Over the past four decades, thousands of Western Sahara’s indigenous people — the Sahrawi — have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation. Click here to see our exclusive documentary, “Four Days in Western Sahara: Africa’s Last Colony.”