Human Rights

Their situation seemed desperate; their demeanour, portrayed in several videos published by news outlets, was sour.

On a recent weekday in March, men, women, and even children – all with their belongings heaped on their heads or strapped to their bodies – disembarked from the ferry they say they were forcibly hauled onto from the vast northwest African nation of Mauritania to the Senegalese town of Rosso, on the banks of the Senegal River.

Their offence? Being migrants from the region, they told reporters, regardless of whether they had legal residency papers.

“We suffered there,” one woman told France’s TV5 Monde, a baby perched on her hip. “It was really bad.”

The deportees are among hundreds of West Africans who have been rounded up by Mauritanian security forces, detained, and sent over the border to Senegal and Mali in recent months, human rights groups say.

According to one estimate from the Mauritanian Association for Human Rights (AMDH),1,200 people were pushed back in March alone, even though about 700 of them had residence permits.

Those pushed back told reporters about being randomly approached for questioning before being arrested, detained for days in tight prison cells with insufficient food and water, and tortured. Many people remained in prison in Mauritania, they said.

The largely desert country – which has signed expensive deals with the European Union to keep migrants from taking the risky boat journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Western shores – has called the pushbacks necessary to crack down on human smuggling networks.

However, its statements have done little to calm rare anger from its neighbours, Mali and Senegal, whose citizens make up a huge number of those sent back.

Mali’s government, in a statement in March, expressed “indignation” at the treatment of its nationals, adding that “the conditions of arrest are in flagrant violation of human rights and the rights of migrants in particular.”

In Senegal, a member of parliament called the pushbacks “xenophobic” and urged the government to launch an investigation.

“We’ve seen these kinds of pushbacks in the past but it is at an intensity we’ve never seen before in terms of the number of people deported and the violence used,” Hassan Ould Moctar, a migration researcher at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, told Al Jazeera.

The blame, the researcher said, was largely to be put on the EU. On one hand, Mauritania was likely under pressure from Brussels, and on the other hand, it was also likely reacting to controversial rumours that migrants deported from Europe would be resettled in the country despite Nouakchott’s denial of such an agreement.

Is Mauritania the EU’s external border?

Mauritania, on the edge of the Atlantic, is one of the closest points from the continent to Spain’s Canary Islands. That makes it a popular departure point for migrants who crowd the coastal capital, Nouakchott, and the commercial northern city of Nouadhibou. Most are trying to reach the Canaries, a Spanish enclave closer to the African continent than to Europe, from where they can seek asylum.

Due to its role as a transit hub, the EU has befriended Nouakchott – as well as the major transit points of Morocco and Senegal – since the 2000s, pumping funds to enable security officials there to prevent irregular migrants from embarking on the crossing.

However, the EU honed in on Mauritania with renewed vigour last year after the number of people travelling from the country shot up to unusual levels, making it the number one departure point.

About 83 percent of the 7,270 people who arrived in the Canaries in January 2024 travelled from Mauritania, migrant advocacy group Caminando Fronteras (CF) noted in a report last year. That number represented a 1,184 percent increase compared with January 2023, when most people were leaving Senegal. Some 3,600 died on the Mauritania-Atlantic route between January and April 2024, CF noted.

Analysts, and the EU, link the surge to upheavals wracking the Sahel, from Mali to Niger, including coups and attacks by several armed groups looking to build caliphates. In Mali, attacks on local communities by armed groups and government forces suspicious of locals have forced hundreds over the border into Mauritania in recent weeks.

Ibrahim Drame of the Senegalese Red Cross in the border town of Rosso told Al Jazeera the migrant raids began in January after a new immigration law went into force, requiring a residence permit for any foreigner living on Mauritanian soil. However, he said most people have not had an opportunity to apply for those permits. Before this, nationals of countries like Senegal and Mali enjoyed free movement under bilateral agreements.

“Raids have been organised day and night, in large markets, around bus stations, and on the main streets,” Drame noted, adding that those affected are receiving dwindling shelter and food support from the Red Cross, and included migrants from Togo, Nigeria, Niger, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana and Benin.

“Hundreds of them were even hunted down in their homes or workplaces, without receiving the slightest explanation … mainly women, children, people with chronic illnesses in a situation of extreme vulnerability and stripped of all their belongings, even their mobile phones,” Drame said.

Last February, European Commission head, Ursula von der Leyen, visited President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani in Nouakchott to sign a 210 million euro ($235m) “migrant partnership agreement”. The EU said the agreement was meant to intensify “border security cooperation” with Frontex, the EU border agency, and dismantle smuggler networks. The bloc has promised an additional 4 million euros ($4.49m) this year to provide food, medical, and psychosocial support to migrants.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was also in Mauritania in August to sign a separate border security agreement.

Fear and pain from a dark past

Black Mauritanians in the country, meanwhile, say the pushback campaign has awakened feelings of exclusion and forced displacement carried by their communities. Some fear the deportations may be directed at them.

Activist Abdoulaye Sow, founder of the US-based Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in the US (MNHRUS), told Al Jazeera that to understand why Black people in the country feel threatened, there’s a need to understand the country’s painful past.

Located at a confluence where the Arab world meets Sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritania has historically been racially segregated, with the Arab-Berber political elite dominating over the Black population, some of whom were previously, or are still, enslaved. It was only in 1981 that Mauritania passed a law abolishing slavery, but the practice still exists, according to rights groups.

Dark-skinned Black Mauritanians are composed of Haratines, an Arabic-speaking group descended from formerly enslaved peoples. There are also non-Arabic speaking groups like the Fulani and Wolof, who are predominantly from the Senegal border area in the country’s south.

Black Mauritanians, Sow said, were once similarly deported en masse in trucks from the country to Senegal. It dates back to April 1989, when simmering tensions between Mauritanian herders and Senegalese farmers in border communities erupted and led to the 1989-1991 Border War between the two countries. Both sides deployed their militaries in heavy gunfire battles. In Senegal, mobs attacked Mauritanian traders, and in Mauritania, security forces cracked down on Senegalese nationals.

Because a Black liberation movement was also growing at the time, and the Mauritanian military government was fearful of a coup, it cracked down on Black Mauritanians, too.

By 1991, there were refugees on either side in the thousands. However, after peace came about, the Mauritanian government expelled thousands of Black Mauritanians under the guise of repatriating Senegalese refugees. Some 60,000 people were forced into Senegal. Many lost important citizenship and property documents in the process.

“I was a victim too,” Sow said. “It wasn’t safe for Blacks who don’t speak Arabic. I witnessed armed people going house to house and asking people if they were Mauritanian, beating them, even killing them.”

Sow said it is why the deportation of sub-Saharan migrants is scaring the community. Although he has written open letters to the government warning of how Black people could be affected, he said there has been no response.

“When they started these recent deportations again, I knew where they were going, and we’ve already heard of a Black Mauritanian deported to Mali. We’ve been sounding the alarm for so long, but the government is not responsive.”

The Mauritanian government directed Al Jazeera to an earlier statement it released regarding the deportations, but did not address allegations of possible forced expulsions of Black Mauritanians.

In the statement, the government said it welcomed legal migrants from neighbouring countries, and that it was targeting irregular migrants and smuggling networks.

“Mauritania has made significant efforts to enable West African nationals to regularise their residence status by obtaining resident cards following simplified procedures,” the statement read.

Although Mauritania eventually agreed to take back its nationals between 2007 and 2012, many Afro-Mauritanians still do not have documents proving their citizenship as successive administrations implement fluctuating documentation and census laws. Tens of thousands are presently stateless, Sow said. At least 16,000 refugees chose to stay back in Senegal to avoid persecution in Mauritania.

Sow said the fear of another forced deportation comes on top of other issues, including national laws that require students in all schools to learn in Arabic, irrespective of their culture. Arabic is Mauritania’s lingua franca, but Afro-Mauritanians who speak languages like Wolof or Pula are against what they call “forced Arabisation”. Sow says it is “cultural genocide”.

Despite new residence permit laws in place, Sow added, migrants, as well as the Black Mauritanian population, should be protected.

“Whether they are migrants or not, they have their rights as people, as humans,” he said.

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Johannesburg, South Africa – On a chilly Sunday evening in Johannesburg, OR Tambo International Airport was filled with tourists and travellers entering and exiting South Africa’s busiest airport.

On one side of the international departures hall, a few dozen people queued – their trollies piled with luggage, travel pillows and children’s blankets – as they waited to board a charter flight to Washington Dulles International Airport in the United States.

Dressed casually and comfortably for the 13-hour journey that would follow, the group – most young, all white – talked among themselves while avoiding onlookers. Although they blended into the bustling terminal around them, these weren’t ordinary travellers. They were Afrikaners leaving South Africa to be refugees in Donald Trump’s America.

When Charl Kleinhaus first applied for refugee resettlement in the US earlier this year, he told officials he had been threatened and that people attempted to claim his property.

The 46-year-old, who claimed to own a farm in Limpopo, South Africa’s northernmost province, was not required to present proof of these threats or provide details regarding when the alleged incidents occurred.

On Sunday, he joined dozens of others accepted by the Trump administration as part of a pilot programme granting asylum to people from the Afrikaner community – descendants of mainly Dutch colonisers that led the brutal apartheid regime for nearly five decades.

The Trump administration claims white people face discrimination in South Africa – a country where they make up some 7 percent of the population but own more than 70 percent of the land and occupy the majority of top management positions.

“I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told Kleinhaus and the others when they landed at the Dulles International in Virginia.

“We respect the long tradition of your people and what you have accomplished over the years,” he said on Monday.

Speaking to a journalist at the airport, Kleinhaus said he never expected “this land expropriation thing to go so far” in South Africa.

He was referring to the recently passed Expropriation Act, which allows the South African government to, in exceptional circumstances, take land for public use without compensation. Pretoria says the measure is aimed at redressing apartheid injustices, as Black South Africans who make up more than 80 percent of the population still own just 4 percent of the land.

South African officials say the law has not resulted in any land grabs. There is also no record of Kleinhaus’s property being expropriated.

Kleinhaus was unaffected by any threats and the government was unaware of anyone who might have threatened his property, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told Al Jazeera.

“The people of South Africa have not been affected by the expropriation of land. There’s no evidence. None of them are affected by any farm murders either,” the minister emphasised.

Discredited ‘genocide’ claims

In February, when Trump signed an executive order granting refugee status to Afrikaners, he cited widely discredited claims that their land was being seized and that they were being brutally killed in South Africa.

On Monday, Trump again claimed that Afrikaners were victims of a “genocide” – an accusation South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other experts maintain is based on lies.

“Farmers are being killed,” Trump told reporters. “White farmers are being brutally killed, and the land is being confiscated in South Africa.”

Ramaphosa has also debunked claims that the group who left this week faced any persecution at home.

“They are leaving because they do not wish to embrace the democratic transformation unfolding in South Africa,” he said.

For 60-year-old Sam Busa, watching Kleinhaus and the 48 other South Africans leave to be resettled in the US was a hopeful moment.

Busa, who has also applied for asylum, is waiting in anticipation for an interview that would qualify her for resettlement. She has begun selling excess household items in anticipation of her new life in the US.

The semi-retired businesswoman has been at the forefront of efforts – through a website called Amerikaners – encouraging Afrikaners to take an interest in the US offer to grant refugee status on the grounds that they face racial persecution in South Africa.

When asked how she has experienced persecution because of her race, Busa recounted an incident where she was held at gunpoint at her home in Johannesburg – the commercial capital of South Africa and one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

She later moved to KwaZulu-Natal on the country’s east coast, where she ran a business that provided services to the government.

When asked whether she believed she was targeted because of her race or if she was simply a victim of common crime, Busa asserted it did not matter.

She didn’t feel safe, she said. “I am not overly sensitive. When I watch Julius Malema singing about killing the Boer, it is extremely terrifying.”

Malema, the far-left leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) political party, often sings a famous anti-apartheid song, Kill the Boer (Boer meaning farmer in Afrikaans), which the courts have ruled is not hate speech or an incitement to violence.

‘Persecution’

For Busa, much like Kleinhaus, new legislation passed to bolster racial transformation, which includes having specific hiring targets for employment equity, has been “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

“Expropriation without compensation is a huge issue, along with the amendment to employment equity,” she said, restating her belief that white people don’t have a future in South Africa.

“It’s coming hard and fast, and it’s becoming clear to [white] South Africans that we struggle with fears of home invasion. I don’t live on a farm, but there are massive fears because of the constant threat of crime. It has become clear to white South Africans; it’s not disguised,” she claimed.

The narrative of fear is prevalent among those engaged in the refugee programme despite the fact that several experts have debunked the assertion that they were victims of racially motivated attacks and not common crime.

South Africa sees about 19,000 murders a year. According to data from the police, most victims of rural crime are Black, with evidence showing that white farmers are not disproportionately being killed.

Meanwhile, many participants in the US’s Afrikaner refugee resettlement programme do not even live on farms; many are urban dwellers, according to Minister Ntshavheni.

Katia Beedan, who lives in Cape Town, is also anticipating resettlement in the US. She told Al Jazeera that refugee hopefuls do not have to prove racial persecution but simply articulate it.

“For me, it’s racial persecution and political persecution,” she said about her reasons for wanting to leave South Africa.

The copywriter-turned-life coach pointed to racial transformation laws targeting employment equity and land expropriation, which she believes the government is “overwhelming us with”, as a key reason for her desire to flee.

However, many other South Africans see sections of the Afrikaner community – including their right-wing lobby groups like AfriForum that first pushed the false narrative of a “white genocide” – as struggling to exist equally in a country where they were once considered superior because of their race.

“I think AfriForum is struggling with the reality of being ordinary,” social justice activist and South Africa’s former public protector, Thuli Madonsela, told local TV channel, Newzroom Afrika, in March.

“The new South Africa requires all of us to be ordinary, whereas colonialism and apartheid made white people special people.

“I think some white people … [are] seeking to reverse the wheel and find reason to be special again. They seem to have found an ally in the American president,” she said.

‘Absurd and ridiculous’

In February, as Trump expedited efforts to resettle Afrikaners in the US, he was closing off his country’s refugee programme to other asylum seekers from war-torn and famine-stricken parts of the world.

For Loren Landau from the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the Afrikaner refugee relocation is “absurd and ridiculous”.

“They have not been welcomed as tourists or work permit holders, but as refugees. The idea of a refugee system is to protect those who cannot be safeguarded by their own states and who fear persecution or violence because of who they are or their membership in a social group. Can Afrikaners make that case?” he asked.

Although “there are people in South Africa who discriminate against them,” and Afrikaners now “have less privilege and protection than during the apartheid era”, it cannot be said that this is indicative of state policy, he said, adding that many different people are robbed, killed, and face discrimination in South Africa.

“Are they [Afrikaners] specially victimised because of who they are? Absolutely not!” Landau added.

He said all statistics on land ownership, income, and education levels indicate that South Africa’s white population far outstrips others: “They are still by far in the top strata of South African society. No one is taking their land. No one is taking their cars.”

Even fringe groups that may have called for land grabs have done little to enact their threats, observers note.

However, for Busa, that doesn’t matter. “I fear for my children. You never know when the EFF decides they want you dead. It’s not a country I want to live in,” she said. The EFF has said those who decide to leave South Africa should have their citizenship revoked.

Confronted with the implications of this situation, the government is considering whether those who exit as refugees could easily return to the country. Ramaphosa is expected to discuss the ongoing matter with Trump at a meeting in the US next week.

Meanwhile, for the Afrikaners now in the US, most will settle in Texas, with others in New York, Idaho, Iowa and North Carolina, while the government helps them find work and accommodation.

They will hold refugee status for one year, after which they can apply for a US green card to make them permanent residents. At the same time, the Afrikaner resettlement programme remains open to others who want to apply.

When Kleinhaus and his group arrived in the US on Monday, they had smiles on their faces as they met officials and waved US flags.

Yet, for South Africa’s president, their resettlement in the US marks “a sad moment for them” – and something he believes may not last.

“As South Africans, we are resilient. We don’t run away from our problems,” he said at an agricultural exhibition in Free State province on Monday.

“If you look at all national groups in our country, Black and white, they’ve stayed in this country because it’s our country.

“I can bet you that they [the Afrikaners who left] will be back soon because there is no country like South Africa.”

Human rights groups say politicians have been forcibly disappeared in recent days

Mali’s military government has dissolved all political parties after accusations from rights groups that opposition figures have been arrested.

Assimi Goita, who seized power in two army coups in 2020 and 2021, validated the decision after it was broadcast to Malians in a televised statement on Tuesday.

The parties were disbanded after demonstrations this month, demanding the country returned to democratic rule.

Protesters gathered on May 3 and 4, carrying placards with slogans reading, “Down with dictatorship, long live democracy,” in a rare public rebuke of the military government, which had promised to hold elections in 2022.

A national conference held in April recommended extending Goita’s presidency until 2030, drawing condemnation from opposition figures and human rights groups.

In response to another protest that had been planned on Friday, the military government issued a decree suspending all political activities across the country.

The move forced opposition groups to cancel the demonstration, and the government has now tightened its grip further.

The clampdown has coincided with reports of disappearances of opposition figures. Human rights groups said several politicians have been forcibly disappeared in recent days.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Abba Alhassane, the secretary-general of the Convergence for the Development of Mali (CODEM), was “arrested” by “masked gunmen”.

That same day, El Bachir Thiam, the leader of the Yelema party, was reportedly seized by unidentified men in Kati, a town outside the capital.

On Tuesday, a CODEM member speaking on condition of anonymity told the Reuters news agency that the party had lost contact with Abdoul Karim Traore, a youth leader, and feared he too had been abducted.

Malian authorities have not commented on the reported arrests.

Goita first seized power in August 2020 amid escalating attacks from armed groups affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

In July 2020, protests against the former civilian government were violently repressed with at least 14 people killed during a crackdown by security forces.

The military then ousted the elected government, citing its failure to tackle the armed groups.

In December last year, HRW reported that Malian soldiers alongside Russian Wagner Group fighters “deliberately killed” at least 32 civilians and burned more than 100 homes in central and northern Mali.

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The investigation uncovers how Steward Health Care executives drained hospitals of resources, saddled them with crushing debt and triggered one of the largest hospital bankruptcies in US history – while walking away with millions.

Hamas has released Edan Alexander, a dual United States-Israeli national and soldier, as it seeks to revive ceasefire negotiations and an end to Israel’s punishing blockade on the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed on Monday evening that it had facilitated the soldier’s transfer. An image was released showing Alexander with Hamas members and a Red Cross official.

Hamas said it had released Alexander as a goodwill gesture towards US President Donald Trump, who is visiting Arab Gulf nations this week.

Fighting briefly stopped to allow for the handover after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would permit safe passage for the release.

“Edan Alexander, American hostage thought dead, to be released by Hamas. Great news!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“The government of Israel warmly welcomes soldier Sergeant Edan Alexander who has been returned from Hamas captivity,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.

“The government of Israel is committed to the return of all hostages and missing persons – both the living and the fallen,” the statement added. Families of the captives have accused Netanyahu of putting his own political survival above that of the captives still held in Gaza.

In a statement, ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric welcomed Alexander’s release while calling for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.

“We are relieved that one more family has been reunited today. This nightmare, however, continues for the remaining hostages, their families, and hundreds of thousands of civilians across Gaza,” Spoljaric said.

Alexander’s mother reportedly arrived in Israel on Monday and was flown to the Re’im military base, where the two were expected to be reunited later in the evening, according to Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Al Jazeera is banned from Israel.

Despite the release, Israel has made no commitment to a broader ceasefire. “There’s nothing in exchange, no release of Palestinian prisoners, no pause in the fighting,” Salhut said. “If there are going to be any sort of negotiations, they’re going to happen under fire,” Salhut added, referring to the Israeli government’s prevailing line.

Akiva Eldar, an Israeli political analyst, said Alexander’s release has spurred joy as well as frustration in Israel. “What we see is that what President Trump can do, Netanyahu is not able – or not willing – to do,” he told Al Jazeera from Tel Aviv.

The Israeli prime minister has faced widespread calls to end the Gaza war to secure the captives’ release but has said he plans to expand Israel’s offensive.

“Today is a crucial point,” Eldar explained. “Because the Israeli public is aware of the fact that if you want a deal, if you want your sons back at home, you can do it. But for that, you have to be a leader like President Trump and not like Netanyahu.”

Release changes little for devastated Palestinians

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said there seems to be no change forthcoming in Palestinians’ daily suffering: “Palestinians are devastated. They’re exhausted. Palestinian families are unable to feed their children. They’re saying their children are going to bed hungry.”

“The IPC [Integrated Food Security Phase Classification] report issued today said 93 percent of Gaza’s population is living through acute food insecurity. This is because of the blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip,” Khoudary said.

“Palestinians are asking, ‘What’s next? What is this release going to bring? Are there any positive negotiations? Is there any glimpse of hope of a ceasefire?’” she added.

And the bombardment continues, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 15 people on Monday.

Gaza on brink of famine

Humanitarian organisations have warned that Gaza is on the verge of mass starvation. The IPC reported that half a million Palestinians face imminent famine.

According to the IPC, 70 days after Israel blocked entry of essential supplies, “goods indispensable for people’s survival are either depleted or expected to run out in the coming weeks.”

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, urged immediate international action. “Families in Gaza are starving while the food they need is sitting at the border,” she said. “If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for many people.”

Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, also issued a stark warning. “The risk of famine does not arrive suddenly,” she said. “It unfolds in places where access to food is blocked, where health systems are decimated, and where children are left without the bare minimum to survive.”

Hunger, she added, has become “a daily reality for children across the Gaza Strip”.

Gaza assault set to continue

Netanyahu and his hardline government remain committed to escalating the military campaign in Gaza.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a key coalition partner, reiterated his position that the war must continue and humanitarian aid should be blocked from entering the territory.

“Israel has not committed to a ceasefire of any kind,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, claiming military pressure had compelled Hamas to release Alexander. Critics have countered that the release came about purely because of direct US contacts with Hamas.

Netanyahu met US figures, including Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Ambassador Mike Huckabee, on Monday. His office described the meeting as a “last-ditch effort” to push forward a captive-release deal before the fighting widens.

Huckabee said Trump and his administration “hope this long-overdue release” of Alexander “marks the beginning of the end to this terrible war”.

Israel plans to send a delegation to Doha on Tuesday for talks but made clear military operations would persist. “The prime minister made it clear that negotiations would only take place under fire,” his office said.