Senegal : Mauritanian refugees hunger strike enters 10th day
--claiming it’s fight for their dignity
The hunger strike by dozens of Mauritanian refugees in Senegal has entered its tenth day on Friday.
The Mauritanians, who have been staging a sit-in action opposite the offices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Dakar since the hunger strike, are demanding proper resettlement and regularization of their refugee status.
But so far, all attempts by WADR to get reactions from the UNHCR as well as the governments of Senegal and Mauritania UNHCR have failed.
One of the refugees leading the hunger strike, sexagenarian Aldiouma Cissokho, who is also the Coordinator of the Mauritanian Refugees Association in Senegal, told West Africa Democracy Radio (WADR) that the ongoing protest is their ‘way to fight for dignity and respect of law.’
Most of the Mauritanian refugees currently agitating for resettlement are those deported from their country 1989 to Senegal and Mali.
Cissokho said there were nearly 20,000 Mauritanian refugees who were still living in Senegal.
Sitting on the floor of a unfisnished building opposite the UNHCR office in Dakar, Cissokho vents out the Mauritanian refugees’ grievances in a chat with Licka Sidibe of WADR’s French service.
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