Over the last two decades, efforts to detain and remove migrants in Mauritania have grown as pressure from Europe to stem migration flows has increased. However, these enforcement efforts have experienced a noticeable uptick in the last few years. Ahead of the UN Committee on Migrant Workers’ (CMW) examination of Mauritania’s compliance with the Convention, the GDP submitted information detailing these concerns, following-up with an in-person statement during the CMW’s informal briefing on 1 December 2025.
Between July and November 2022, Mauritania ran a regularisation campaign, allowing undocumented migrants in the country to obtain free residence permits at a centre in Nouakchott. Approximately 140,000 migrants were reported to have regularised their status during this time. However, a 2023 note from the European Council Presidency to the Working Party on External Aspects of Asylum and Migration estimated that at least 100,000 remained undocumented–and this number is now likely to be significantly larger. Moreover, according to observers, some who applied for the permit never received their paperwork.
Since then, the government has viewed anyone without a residence permit or UNHCR-issued refugee card, or who has not entered the country through one of the official 89 border crossing points, as “irregular”–and thus as deportable. This has included nationals from Niger, Mali, and Senegal–even though they are legally permitted to stay in Mauritania for 90 days before obtaining a residence permit. However, as we mentioned above, those in possession of valid paperwork such as UNHCR documents have also been arrested and deported.
Thus far during 2025, thousands of non-nationals have been arrested, detained in a variety of detention facilities, and expelled. According to the State party, 19,689 irregular migrants were arrested and deported between 1 January and 25 May 2025 alone. Sub-Saharans are disproportionately affected by removal efforts, and reports describe apprehensions in sweeping raids targeting homes, workplaces, and streets. According to Alarmphone, the Mauritanian police and the Spanish Guardia Civil jointly conduct these raids before handing them over to the National Security Department (emigration service).
There are numerous facilities used for detention purposes. In Nouakchott, for example, observers have reported to us that detainees are initially held in one facility (such as the Dar Naim Centre or the Arafat Centre), before being moved to another (the Robinet 10 Centre in the city’s Cinquieme Quartier) from where they are deported. Observers report that detention prior to deportation is often brief–often lasting a few days, or up to a week –leaving no possibility for detainees to appeal their removal. Alternatively, some migrants manage to pay a sum to secure their release. However, as one observer reported to us, paying to secure release does nothing to protect against future detention]
Following detention, thousands have been forcibly expelled across the border into Mali and Senegal. While Mauritania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs has previously stated that deportations are “carried out with respect for human rights,” there are numerous credible reports revealing cases of migrants being abused during forced removal operations. Al Jazeera, for example, noted in May this year that migrants had been “stripped of all their belongings, including their mobile phones” and “tortured” while in detention.
A Guinean migrant, who has been widely cited by media outlets, also described being arrested and beaten by police in the middle of the night, being held for three days in a police detention facility with no food or access to toilets, and being abandoned at the border with Senegal (in Rosso). He described himself and others wandering the streets “with nowhere to go.” Rosso has been the focus of several reports, as there have reportedly been “hundreds” of migrants stranded and “in distress” on both sides of the border here.
Based on the large number of reports and testimonies collected by professional journalists, civil society actors, and human rights practitioners, it seems abundantly clear that Mauritania is engaging in arbitrary migrant arrests, detentions, and deportations. This state of affairs is abetted by the lack of oversight of these enforcement actions in Mauritania. According to the Mauritanian Association for Human Rights, the country’s enforcement campaign has been “carried out with brutality and disregard for fundamental rights, constituting a serious violation of human dignity and of the international and regional commitments made by our country.”
