Mauritania refugees return home after long exile
by Daniel Flynn

Reuters    Translate This Article
30 January 2008

ROSSO, Senegal, (Reuters) - The first of thousands of black Mauritanian refugees returned home from exile in Senegal on Tuesday, nearly two decades after they fled bloody ethnic purges in their Arab-dominated Saharan nation.

Their brightly coloured robes billowing in the wind, 101 refugees crossed the Senegal River in a ferry to the Mauritanian side of the border town of Rosso, their goods and livestock packed on white trucks of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

The repatriation of 24,000 of the long-forgotten refugees is a test of the pledge by Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, who took office in April, to improve human rights in the Islamic republic after decades of dictatorship.

Many children among those returning had never seen their homeland, while for others it was their first time on Mauritanian soil since they were driven from their homes by the regime of former dictator Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya in 1989.

'I'm so happy to be returning home,' said Kumba Moussa Sow, 45, a widow with three children. 'There are people living now in my old house, so I don't know where I will live—but I have taken my decision and I'm going back,' she added.

Hundreds of people were killed and some 80,000 expelled when Taya's government took advantage of border disputes with Senegal over grazing and fishing rights to drive black Africans, many of them pastoralists from the Fula tribe, across the border.

Roughly half of the Mauritanian refugees remaining in Senegal have already registered to return, despite concerns over lingering racism in the Islamic state and unanswered calls for compensation and the trial of those responsible for the purges.

'If there is racism there, it should end. We are all Muslims, so there should be no racism,' said refugee Mamadou Keita. 'We can forgive but we cannot forget,' he added.

'MAKING PEACE'

Mauritania has undergone a democratic revolution since Taya was toppled in a bloodless coup in 2005.

Abdallahi has promised to welcome back the refugees and promote racial harmony. His government approved last year tough penalties for slavery, which persists in the vast desert state of 3 million people.

As they walked off the ferry onto Mauritanian soil, many waving tiny green national flags of their homeland, the refugees were greeted by hundreds of well-wishers who shouted 'Welcome Refugees.'

'This is a day of celebration for all Mauritanians because we have re-established our national unity,' said Mauritanian ambassador to Dakar, Mohamed Vall Ould Bellal. 'Mauritania is making peace with itself.'

UNHCR, which is providing transport and three months of food rations plus tents and cooking utensils, expects more than 60 percent of the refugees to have returned home by the end of the year-long repatriation programme.

With many of their children unable to speak Mauritania's Hassaniya tongue, they will face problems in adapting.

'I will have to start from zero,' said 30-year-old Ousmane Sow, who says he still feels Mauritanian despite spending most of his life in Senegal. 'My father's house where I used to live has been completely destroyed. I will have to rebuild it.'

Like millions in Africa's arid Sahel belt just south of the Sahara, the refugees will face competition for land, water and resources when they return. Many were waiting anxiously in Senegal to see the result of the pilot repatriations.

'I'm going to stay here for now,' said Amadou Moussa Sow, a refugee leader in the Senegalese town of Richard Toll. 'If those who remain behind see it's going well, then others will follow.'

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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