MAURITANIA: "We are happy to welcome back our brothers and sisters"

Yacoub Diop is a former police officer and the current chief of Medina Salam, a village on the Senegal River in southern Mauritania, which recently welcomed 41 refugees after 19 years of exile in Senegal. He himself was once a refugee. The moors, who dominate the country, forced him and thousands of black Africans to flee in 1989. Diop spent the next nine years in Senegal, returning home in 1997. He spoke to IRIN about the ongoing experience of return.

“In 1997 I crossed the river with my two wives and three children [back to Mauritania]. Half of the village inhabitants had already returned. In those days, no one talked about ‘organised returns’. The climate was not as calm then as it is now, and the state authorities were not very cooperative.”

“Our village was well populated [with black Africans] before 1989. But after the expulsions there was only one family left – all the others had been chased away. When we came back we had to reconstruct the school and the health-centre as there was nothing left.”

"We returned to find other families had taken our places in the village and we had to fight to recover our houses and land. The administration and the police had to intervene to stop the situation degenerating.”

“Today we are very happy to welcome back our brothers and sisters who stayed in Senegal. We are expecting about 30 families in total. There should be no problems cohabitating – we are all relatives after all.”

“The main problems that could arise are over work. To avoid conflict, we must rehabilitate the cultivable land and put up boundaries between plots. We must install pumps and put irrigation systems in place so we can all farm.

“We have taken back 60 hectares of our land in the last few years, but we still don’t have enough. Today much of our land is in the hands of wealthy Moorish businessmen who use it to grow rice. It should be returned to us. We already told the Minister of the Interior when he came here to see us.”

“The authorities should help returning families to set up small businesses and find jobs. Also with the new families we will need to enlarge the school, adding one or two classrooms. As the village grows, we’ll also need a expand the health clinic and another nurse, as our current clinic will be overwhelmed.”

"As for me, I was once a civil servant, and my rights should be restored. I can no longer rejoin the police force as I am now too old but I would still like to get a policeman’s pension, if that would be possible.”