Mauritania accused of serious 'violations' over treatment of migrants

Human Rights Watch says between 2020 and 2025, security services in northwest African country engaged in torture, rape and racist abuse of migrant people

Members of the Mehariste National Guard unit stand in formation on the outskirts of Oualata, in south-eastern Mauritania, on 6 April 2025 (Patrick Meinhardt/AFP)

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Mauritania has been accused of overseeing "serious human rights violations" in its treatment of west and central African migrants.

Between 2020 and early 2025, the Mauritanian security forces subjected migrant people to a range of abuses during border and migration control, including torture, rape, arbitrary arrests and detention, racism, extortion and theft, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report published on Wednesday.

Based on interviews with 223 people by phone and in person during visits to Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, and European Union institutions in Brussels, HRW collected a range of images and testimony detailing mistreatment in detention centres and Dar Naim prison, which held people on migrant smuggling charges.

They confirmed violations against 77 migrants and asylum seekers, including men, women and children, as well as a Mauritanian man, who said police tortured him during an interrogation over smuggling in 2022.

Witnesses interviewed accuse the Mauritanian police, coastguard, army and gendarmerie of perpetrating these acts.

“For years, Mauritanian authorities followed an abusive migration control playbook - sadly common across North Africa - by violating the rights of African migrants from other regions,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at HRW.

“But Mauritania’s recent reforms show that a new approach is possible. The government should build on these efforts, scale up monitoring of security forces, and halt collective expulsions.”

HRW also criticised a new migration partnership deal the EU signed with Mauritania in 2024 to reduce migration from North Africa.

The EU paid Mauritania €210 million (around $243m) in funding which HRW said "incentivised" the country's abuse of migrant people and refugees.

Earlier this year, a large-scale campaign of migrant expulsions from Mauritania provoked outcry from countries like Mali and Senegal.

Mauritania, a largely desert country located on the Atlantic coast, has in recent years become a departure point for people attempting to reach Europe by sea.

Thousands have lost their lives in the deadly maritime route from North Africa.

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