Mauritania ethnic-cleansed Afro-Mauritanians using Haratin soldiers

Evidence

During the late eighties and early nineties, the government committed ethnic cleansing of some groups of Afro-Mauritanians and used Haratin soldiers to kill and torture them. The government also forcibly expelled about 100,000 Afro-Mauritanians to Senegal and Mali. — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 354

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the genocide/ethnic cleansing theme threaded through Okeowo’s Somalia and Rwanda reporting, and to the moral-panic literature on how regimes instrumentalize one marginalized group against another. — connects to: Mauritania’s slavery produced a hereditary caste system of White Moors and Haratin — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 98; Haratin and Afro-Mauritanians together form over 70 percent of Mauritania’s population — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 355; Haratin identity was forged by culture and language, not race — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 355 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 354

Broader Connections

• Slave-control ideology assigned each African ethnicity a natural niche matching its labor role #expands (0.82)
• Haratin identity was forged by culture and language, not race #complicates (0.70) — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 355
• Haratin and Afro-Mauritanians together form over 70 percent of Mauritania’s population #expands (0.60) — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 355