The Cathedral of Saint Francis of Assisi was built by Spain in the 1950s when Western Sahara was still the Spanish colony of Río de Oro and Saguía el-Hamra. The plain white modernist building, with a tall slim bell tower and a stone-flagged forecourt, sits in the southern "lower town". For decades after the Spanish withdrawal it was kept locked and minimally maintained; in recent years it has been used occasionally for services by the small Catholic community of African migrants and UN staff.
The building is more interesting from outside than in. Pair a visit here with a walk through the surrounding Souk Djmaa neighbourhood, where the distinctive eggshell-domed white houses Spain built for the Sahrawi quarters remain.