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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.