In 1989 a Moor-dominated Mauritanian government expelled 75,000 black African Mauritanians from the country, after a border dispute erupted into ethnic conflict. Fourteen-year-old Marieme Sy was one of them.
Now, 18 years later, Mauritania’s first democratically elected president has invited the refugees to return. But Sy has decided not to go back. Here's why:
“I was 14 years old, living in Kankossa, [in south-central Mauritania]. The 19th of May 1989, I went to school and found girls screaming and returning home. They said the Senegalese had come to kill us. I fled like them. When I got home, my father said it wasn’t Senegal; it was the Moors.
“I started seeing the city go up in smoke. Houses were burning. More than 1,000 black Moors were 100 metres from our door. They had come to burn and pillage our home. But they did not enter until the [white Moor] Mauritanian government showed up – military police, guards and everything – and gave them authorisation.
“My father asked the Mauritanian officials how they could force us from our home. They told him to shut up or they would kill him and his children.
"They forced us all into one room and took everything.
“They handcuffed my father. They took him to Kiffa, 90 km [north]. I thought they were going to kill him. They took me and my half-brothers and sisters to the police station in Kankossa [along with 300 others].
“I stayed there from May 19th until June 11th. Every day, police and military officers came to choose the women they would sleep with. I thank God they never raped me. The husband of one of the women revolted once. They beat him until he almost died.
“On June 11th, they brought my father back and we made the trip to Bakel in [north-eastern] Senegal. I wasn’t able to continue my studies because I didn’t have the means. I worked as a housemaid, making 3,000 CFA francs (US$6.70) per month. In 1994, I left for Dakar, were I could make more money.
“[On 12 November 2007], I attended the signature of the tripartite agreement [between Senegal, Mauritania and UNHCR in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott] as a representative of the refugee community. I was proud to be there – to be recognised by the state after 18 years.
“I was really scared to enter Mauritania. The day we crossed [the border], I thought it was 1989. I had forgotten many things, but once I arrived there, all those things came back into my head.
“I thought of my father, who had worked hard, who was a leader. One day, they brought him [to Senegal] with nothing. He lived in poverty for 16 years and died in poverty. That really hit me.
“My children have never been to Mauritania. They were born in Senegal. They go to school in Senegal. Schooling in Mauritania is bilingual: French and Arabic. Here, it’s only French. To take them back to live in Mauritania would be very difficult for me.
“It’s not easy. But I will be more comfortable here than in Mauritania. Yes, I am Mauritanian, but when I am told to choose, I say: I have lived 18 years in Senegal. If I go back to Mauritania, I will start at zero.
“For the youth – who left Mauritania at 14, 10, nine, even seven years old, who have been [abroad] 18 years – it’s not easy for them, unless they have family there. I don’t have any relatives there. I have nothing there.
“I don’t want to be Senegalese… but because of the bad memories I have in Mauritania, I cannot bear going back.”
ha/np
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
