Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused Mauritania’s security forces of committing serious human rights violations against migrants from West and Central Africa between 2020 and early 2025.
According to HRW’s new report released on Wednesday, migrants suffered widespread abuses during border checks and migration control operations. The allegations include torture, rape, racist insults, arbitrary arrests, extortion, and theft. Victims included men, women, and children, as well as asylum seekers fleeing conflict and poverty.
The rights group said its findings were based on 223 interviews with migrants and asylum seekers in Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, and EU institutions in Brussels. Testimonies described brutal treatment in detention centres and in Dar Naim prison, where many migrants were held on smuggling charges.
HRW confirmed violations against at least 77 individuals, including a Mauritanian citizen who alleged police tortured him in 2022 during a smuggling-related interrogation. Survivors accused the police, coastguard, army, and gendarmerie of carrying out the mistreatment.
Lauren Seibert, HRW’s researcher on refugee and migrant rights, said Mauritania had long adopted “an abusive migration control playbook” similar to those seen in other parts of North Africa. She urged the government to strengthen oversight of security forces and end “collective expulsions” of migrants.
The report also criticised the 2024 migration deal between the EU and Mauritania, under which the EU paid €210 million ($243 million) to curb migration flows. HRW argued that this funding incentivised abusive practices against migrants rather than protecting their rights.
Earlier in 2025, Mauritania faced backlash from Mali and Senegal after it expelled large groups of migrants in a campaign described by rights groups as unlawful and inhumane.
Mauritania, a desert nation on Africa’s Atlantic coast, has become an increasingly popular departure point for migrants trying to reach Europe by sea. The route is considered one of the deadliest, with thousands of lives lost in the Atlantic and Mediterranean in recent years.