| Mauritania–Senegal Border War | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Senegal | Mauritania | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Senegal unknown | Mauritania unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Hundreds dead | Hundreds dead | ||||||
The Mauritania–Senegal Border War was a conflict fought between the West African countries of Mauritania and Senegal during 1989–1991. The conflict began around the two countries' River Senegal border, over grazing rights.
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Mauritania's south is mostly populated by the Fula/Toucouleur, Wolof and Soninké.
Senegal, meanwhile, is dominated by the Wolof.
In April 1989, the dispute over grazing rights led Mauritanian Moorish border guards to fire at and kill two Senegalese peasants.[1] As a result, people on the Senegalese southern bank rioted. In Senegal, where many shopkeepers were Mauritanian, shops were looted and most Mauritanians were expelled to Mauritania. In Mauritania, lynch mobs and police brutality ended in the forced exile of about 70,000 southerners to Senegal, despite most of them having no links to the country. About 250,000 people fled their homes as both sides engaged in cross-border raids.[1] Hundreds of people died in both countries.[2] The Organisation of African Unity tried to negotiate a settlement to reopen the border, but it was ultimately an initiative of Senegalese President Abdou Diouf which led to a treaty being signed on July 18, 1991.
Mauritanian refugees would slowly trickle back into the country during the following years, but some 20,000–30,000 remain in the border areas of northern Senegal today, and this is were the armed black nationalist Mauritanian movement FLAM is based.
In June 2007, the Mauritanian government under President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help it repatriate black Mauritanians who had been forced out in the war and were living in refugee camps in Mali and Senegal. According to UNHRC estimates, there were 20,000 refugees in Senegal and 6,000 in Mali as of July 2007.[3]