Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday reported that Mauritanian security forces committed serious human rights violations between 2020 and early 2025 against west and central African migrants and asylum seekers.

The 142-page report , titled “They Accused Me of Trying to Go to Europe: Migration Control Abuses and EU Externalization in Mauritania,” documents torture, rape, arbitrary detention, extortion, inhumane conditions, and collective expulsions allegedly carried out by Mauritanian police, coast guard, gendarmerie, navy and army. Such abuses often occurred while the migrants were seeking to leave or transition from the country.

Victim accounts detailed being beaten with sticks and whips, deprived of food and water, and expelled to remote border areas in Mali and Senegal without du

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