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- WORLD, Page 48World NotesMAURITANIAFatal Division
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- Border disputes between Senegal and its northern neighbor
- Mauritania are not unusual, thanks to the fondness of
- Mauritanian camels for Senegalese grass. Thus when two
- Senegalese peasants were shot near the village of Diawara last
- week the incident seemed unremarkable. But, fanned by the
- Senegalese media, the deaths ignited long-smoldering ethnic and
- social tensions between the black Senegalese and the Mauritanian
- Moors. More than 200 died when civilians from both countries
- attacked one another in border towns as well as in Senegal's
- capital, Dakar, and in Mauritania's two major cities. Each
- country used its army to restore order.
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- On Friday violence flared again in Dakar as pillaging of
- Mauritanian shops continued and returning Senegalese told
- stories of Mauritanian atrocities in Nouakchott. As 20,000
- Mauritanians, protected by army troops, gathered at Dakar's
- international fairground for repatriation, the Senegalese
- government sent a warning: if Mauritanian security forces proved
- to have been involved in the killing, the Senegalese reserved
- the right to retaliate.
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