Bamako – Mali says it is outraged over violence suffered by its citizens deported by neighbouring Mauritania and has demanded the “flagrant violation of human rights” must end.
For several weeks, Mauritania has been throwing out migrants, mostly from neighbouring countries in west Africa like Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea.
Mali condemns Mauritania’s deportation of its citizens, calling it a ‘flagrant human rights violation,’ as over 1,800 Malians face expulsion alongside other West African migrants.https://t.co/xDqJOB8BLa#maghrebinsider pic.twitter.com/rwIbqWWn6c
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The vast, arid country on the Atlantic seaboard serves as a departure point for many African migrants seeking to reach Europe by sea.
The authorities say their “routine” deportations target undocumented individuals.
But the campaign has sparked an outcry in the region.
“The government of Mali expresses its indignation and condemns with the utmost rigour the treatment suffered by its nationals in Mauritania,” it said in a statement released during a press conference on the issue held in the capital Bamako on Wednesday.
It also said it regretted “the conditions of arrest in flagrant violation of human rights and the rights of migrants in particular.
The government said it “calls on the Mauritanian authorities to show restraint and calls for an immediate cessation of violence against Malian nationals”.
Migrants rights groups such as SOS Esclaves have condemned arrests in “inhumane” conditions.
Mauritania says the migrants are returned to the border crossings through which they had entered the country.
More than 1,800 Malian migrants have been pushed back from Mauritania in recent weeks, according to Minister for Malians Living Abroad Mossa Ag Attaher.
Talks with Mauritania will continue “to preserve the solid historic ties between the two countries”, the Malian government said in the statement.
Mali’s foreign minister, Abdoulaye Diop, visited Mauritania on Thursday to deliver a message on the need to maintain the “friendly and brotherly relations” between the two countries, the state AMI news agency reported.
His Mauritanian counterpart, Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug, raised the issue of their respective citizens in each other’s country, AMI said.
But Ould Merzoug insisted that Mauritania “has the right to take all necessary measures to ensure its security and to protect its citizens”, the agency reported.
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Source: AFP
