“I’ll return, Insha’Allah,” say African migrants sent out in Mauritania’s campaign
Assalamu alaikum - When Omar*, a 29-year-old bricklayer from rural Gambia, crossed into Mauritania in March he was looking for the better pay he had heard about. He lived in Nouadhibou in a one-room shack with four friends and did casual construction work, earning two to three times what he made back home.
As the eldest of nine and the son of a rice farmer, Omar managed to save and send money to help his family and pay his younger siblings’ school fees. But in August, National Guard pickup trucks started appearing and police began detaining and deporting migrants.
Construction sites were early targets. Without a residence permit, Omar stopped going to work and stayed mostly inside the dusty housing compound in Ghiran, venturing only to the nearby corner shop. Police soon started raiding homes day and night, sometimes breaking down doors.
One evening they swept through his compound; Omar and his friends escaped over rooftops but returned later because they had nowhere else to go. With no work, they soon ran out of money, sharing a small bowl of rice each day and sometimes a fish a friend risked catching at night.
Many migrants in Nouadhibou, Nouakchott and the border towns of Rosso (on both sides of the Senegal River) told similar stories. The Mauritanian Association for Human Rights estimated about 1,200 people were deported in March, including many who had valid residence permits.
Officials have said the country has the right to control borders and that deportees would be treated with dignity and given basic needs, but testimonies from those affected paint a different picture. People described fear, hurried arrests, and poor conditions in detention.
Workers without papers say they faced repeated arrests and sometimes had to pay bribes to be released. Those arrested at work or in their homes describe being searched and often not allowed to collect belongings before being sent out of the country. Detainees reported minimal food, limited access to water and toilets, and crowded sleeping areas where privacy and hygiene were lacking.
Women and children were also detained. A mother of two said she was stopped on the way to buy medicine for her sick baby and taken to a holding facility where she and her children had almost no food during their detention. Some were released after relatives or employers paid bribes; others crossed back into Senegal or elsewhere with little more than the clothes they wore.
The recent campaign came after changes to Mauritania’s immigration law and after a migration partnership and funding agreement was announced between Mauritania and the European Union. Observers say this is part of a wider regional effort to limit irregular departures by sea and manage migration flows.
Many deportees were taken to transit points and then to Rosso, where they waited to cross the river into Senegal. Some with documents were allowed through, but others were turned back and forced to pay smugglers for night crossings by pirogue, landing in remote spots and walking to safety.
Omar eventually returned to The Gambia. He told us he feels relief to be home - “There’s no policeman chasing us here. You don’t have to look over your shoulder” - but he also worries about his family’s needs. With the rainy season reducing demand for labor, he has not yet found work and the household is short on cash.
Still, he remembers the time when work in Nouadhibou was steady and wages were good, and he says: “If they stop deporting people, Insha’Allah I’ll go back to Nouadhibou.”
*Interviewees asked that only one name be used for safety reasons.
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