# taz.de -- Migration policy in Mauritania: A successful migration blockade
> In the past, Mauritania was mostly a transit country. These days,
> migrants traveling there are increasingly blocked. Police brutality
> toward the „foreigners“ is also on the rise.
(IMG) Bild: Refugees from West Sahara in Mauritanias capital Nouakchott
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania is a country that has always been at the
centre of significant migration movements. Small wonder, since major areas
of the country include both the Sahara, with its former and still-existing
caravan routes, and the Atlantic coast.
Eight to ten percent of the Mauritanian population currently lives outside
its borders, a total of 319,000 people, according to the International
Labour Organisation (ILO). In an interview from 2016, researcher Dr.
Ousmane Lague, head of a master's study programme in the subject of
migration at the University of Nouakchott, supplemented these figures: 59
percent of Mauritanian citizens abroad lives in other African countries,
9.6 percent in Persian Gulf states and eight percent on the national
territory of the former colonial power of France. The overall ratio of
emigrants to the entire population is still only about one-third as high as
in the neighbouring county of Mali, where in 2016, the percentage of
citizens living abroad compared to the domestic population was about 29
percent.
In a document commissioned by the ILO in 2010, listing countries where
Mauritanian citizens now reside permanently, only France and Spain were
mentioned. According to this source, in 2005, Mauritanian citizens living
in France numbered 20,000; by comparison, in 2009 there were only 15,000.
The return of older Mauritanian migrant workers who had finished their time
in the labour force might have accounted for this. On the other hand,
during the same period in Spain, the number of Mauritanian citizens grew
from 2,000 to 10,000. This increase may have been due to crossings to the
Canary Islands from the Western Mauritanian coast – which have mostly been
halted since then – but also, to labour migration for jobs in Spanish
agriculture. In both cases, this statistic, based upon numerical data
provided by the Mauritanian foreign ministry, accounts only for those
Mauritanian citizens living “legally“ in each receiving country; the number
of “undocumented“ persons remains unknown.
Statistics from the European office Eurostat show fewer than 1,600 asylum
applicants with Mauritanian citizenship in 2015. This is doubtless related
to Mauritania's overall low population count, which leads to a numerical
underrepresentation in the statistics. Within Europe, mostly in France,
Mauritanian immigration most often consists of a population of ageing
workers who had been recruited for the labour force starting in the 1960s
and '70s.
## Labour force from neighbouring countries
Yet Mauritania has long been an immigrant country as well. At first, this
could be explained – in the period after the state gained independence from
France in 1960 – as an outcome of the country's sparse population and
correlating great need to expand its labour force. Yet as time went on,
Mauritania became primarily a transit country for migrants from other parts
of sub-Saharan Africa trying to pass through on their way to Europe, some
of whom, due to increasing controls and travel barriers, “got stuck“ there.
Over the course of the years, Mauritania's status successively evolved from
transit to immigration country for these groups.
According to the 2013 state census, the “quota of foreigners“ among the
country's inhabitants officially amounts to 2.2 percent, with the majority
coming from the bordering countries of Senegal and Mali. Other sources
estimate the ratio of non-citizens among Mauritania’s inhabitants to be
more likely around seven percent. This figure accounts not only for
refugees, especially since the outbreak of civil war in 2012 in (Northern)
Mali – around 47,000 Malian refugees are registered in M'berra – , but for
the many labour migrants as well. In some sectors of the economy such as
fishing, construction, and mining, the latter have long been indispensable.
On 26 December 2000 – one year after a governmental announcement to that
effect – Mauritania left the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS). A
main reason for this decision was the desire to concentrate on its
membership and role in the “Arab Maghreb Union“ (UMA), an association of
states in Northern African that also includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
In the official explanation for the shift in focus, “cultural reasons“ were
cited, but also the desire to “better represent“ the state's own interests.
The dominating majority in the country is Arab-Berber (“Moor“), while a
dark-skinned minority of the population, living mostly in the South, still
faces ongoing discrimination and, even to the present day, lives partially
under conditions resembling slavery.
The exit from ECOWAS has not hindered Mauritania from maintaining ongoing
close ties to that group of states, and its re-entry is still periodically
discussed (for instance, during the crisis in Mali in 2012-13). However,
Mauritania's non-membership in the West African Economic Community has also
had the ramification that citizens of ECOWAS member states must submit
applications for residence permits in Mauritania, and these are often
rejected by the authorities.
## Special relations with France
Mauritania has signed many bilateral agreements with EU states on matters
of migration policy. As to bilateral relations with its former colonial
power, an existing and valid agreement on rights of residence and the free
movement of persons between the Republic of France and the Islamic Republic
of Mauritania was signed on 1 October 1992 in Nouakchott. With the
publication of a governmental decree on 23 November 1995, this agreement
was incorporated into current French law. Compared to the “general“ law on
the rights of foreign persons, however, this agreement currently offers few
actual advantages, since at most levels, it refers to the general law in
any case; for example, in the points regulating the requirements for a
valid visa, or the prerequisites for access to the labour market with an
already-existing valid residence permit, among others.
In just one point, the bilateral agreement does prove more favourable to
the Mauritanian citizens in question: after a minimum of three years'
residence in France, they may apply for a carte de dix ans, a “ten-year
card“: that is, a de facto unlimited, nearly automatically renewable
residence permit. For other groups of foreign citizens, insofar as other
bilateral agreements do not apply to them, this possibility is offered only
after at least five years of legal residence.
The bilateral agreement between the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and the
Kingdom of Spain, which was signed on 2 July 2003 in Madrid, is principally
a return agreement, for all practical purposes. It allows full access to
the labour market for citizens of Mauritania residing “legally“ in Spain,
while “illegally“ residing Mauritanian citizens must be re-accepted by
their country of origin. However, Mauritania also obligates itself to take
back onto its soil all citizens of third countries who have passed through
its territory on their way to “illegally“ reside in Spain, should Spain
send them back to Mauritania. This applies especially to migrants from
sub-Saharan Africa.
## Co-operation with Frontex
Almost simultaneously to the signing of this agreement, Mauritania was
declared a “priority“ country in development co-operation with the EU;
furthermore, Mauritania was included in a support plan for the Canary
Islands as an “ultra-peripheral region“ of the EU and its neighbour area,
with the active coverage and backing of the Spanish government as well as
the EU Commission. This tactic could be interpreted, as an article in the
French newspaper Hommes et Migrations clearly did, as a kind of reward for
political good behaviour,.
Starting in July 2006, the EU also distributed €2 million to Mauritania to
“combat immigration“. Parallel to this, starting on 17 July 2006, several
Frontex operations were set in motion, including the Operation HERA along
the Mauritanian and Senegalese coasts. These actions were founded upon
bilateral agreements, each in the form of a “memorandum of understanding“
between EU- and Frontex member country Spain, on the one hand, and
Mauritania and Senegal on the other. Meanwhile, since 2006, the number of
migrants entering the Canary Islands has fallen drastically, from 31,678
registered persons (2006) to only 2,264 in 2009. Concurrently, in the
course of Frontex operation phases HERA I and HERA II, a total of 5,000
migrants traveling “illegally“ were stopped in transit. Frontex reports do
not indicate where those persons were taken afterwards.
In the Mauritanian harbour city of Nouadhibou, located about 400 kilometres
north of the capital Nouakchott and at the country's outermost
north-western coastal tip of land, a detention centre for people traveling
“illegally“ was opened in a former school in March 2006. Among migrants, it
was often called Guantanamito (Spanish for “little Guantanamo“). Amnesty
International denounced it in July 2008, stating that migrants were
frequently robbed of everything they owned there. Furthermore, they were
reportedly held in detention on “misdemeanour“ claims – which would not
have been liable to prosecution under local law – of trying to exit
national territory. A stay in the centre lasted a week on average, without
any legal redress or right of appeal, followed by deportation to the
corresponding country of origin. At that time, human rights organisation
Amnesty International denounced these “policies of mass arrest and
deportation“ resulting from the “intense pressure applied by the European
Union, particularly by Spain“. In the years that followed, a series of
critical reports appeared throughout European media.
Since then, a silence has fallen on the subject of the detention or
deportation centre of Nouadhibou, owing to the fact that since 2013, not a
single report about it has been published – neither in the European nor in
the African media, nor by non-governmental organisations. However, the
centre has not been closed.
## Isolated crossing attempts
The main reason for the centre's current lack of significance is that the
transit route along the Mauritanian coast and across the sea to the islands
belonging to Spain – which lie within reach, just off the western coast of
Africa – is now only rarely being traveled. This is a result of severely
heightened control measures. In an interview published on 26 July 2016, El
Hadj Amabdou M’Bow, General Secretary of the Mauritanian Association for
Human Rights (AMDH), spoke of a shift in migration routes toward the
Mediterranean, Libya and Egypt. However, re-routing has apparently
drastically increased the numbers of migrant fatalities during transit.
Migrants caught traveling “illegally“ through the region today are usually
taken either to a “standard“ police station within Nouadhibou, or directly
to the capital city Nouakchott. In any case, should their numbers start to
rise again, authorities could put the centre back into service as a
detention station for travellers trying to pass through or exit the
country.
Clearly, a decrease in transit movements doesn't mean that all migrant
passage through the area has ceased. This was demonstrated during the night
from 24 to 25 February 2015, when eighteen Malian citizens in total were
arrested at sea, offshore from Nouadhibou, where they were trying to cross
over to the Canary Islands. They were taken in police custody to a station
in Nouadhibou and later deported to their country of origin. In the night
leading to 5 November 2016, as reported by the Mauritanian press, “people
smugglers“ – led by a Senegalese and a Malian citizen – were arrested in
Nouadhibou. They were reportedly making final preparations to transport 35
people to the Canary Islands. Nothing is presently known of their
whereabouts.
Regardless of whether they are traveling through Mauritania or staying in
the country for some time, migrants there face repeated violent attacks. On
9 May 2016, Malian citizen Mody Boubou Coulibaly died shortly after being
taken to the hospital, following a brutal police check at a construction
site in the capital Nouakchott. The police check had been carried out to
monitor identification papers and verify residence permits. While trying to
escape seizure by the police, Coulibaly fell from the 4th floor of the
construction site. As he lay on the ground, severely wounded from the fall,
he was then hit by a bullet, eyewitnesses said.
The circumstances of his death incited a protest by the Mauritanian
Association for Human Rights (AMDH), while in Mali, several media sources –
La Sentinelle, Mali Actu – reported on the story, using the incident to
criticise the passivity of their own government.
The co-operation between Spain and Mauritania has lately renewed in its
intensity. On 19 and 20 January 2015, Spanish Foreign Minister Jorge
Fernandez Diaz conducted a second state visit to Nouakchott. Speaking to
the press on the occasion, he expressed Spain's “thanks to the Mauritanian
authorities for their contribution in combating illegal immigration“. In a
conversation with his Mauritanian counterpart – Mohamed Ould Ahmed Salem
Ould Mohamed Raré – Diaz celebrated the country's successes in the “fight
against terrorism and organised crime, against the drug trade and illegal
immigration.“ A remarkable recitation and amalgamation of vastly diverse
societal phenomena. At the conclusion of the two-day visit, an agreement
was signed to solidify the increased co-operation between the ministries of
the interior of both states.
12 Dec 2016
## AUTOREN
(DIR) Bernard Schmid
## TAGS
(DIR) migControl
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA