Mauritania: Six months since the disappearances of fourteen detainees from Nouakchott prison

Two weeks after the incident on 8 June, the personal effects of the forteen detainnes-books, mattresses, and blankets-were returned to their families without further explanation by the penitentiary administration. The families learned that the fourteen detainees were taken to the Nouakchott airport on the night of 23 May and boarded an army transport plane to be taken to a secret detention center in the Sahara Desert in Mauritania. The authorities would neither confirm nor deny this information.

To date, six months after the disappearances, the families of the prisoners continue to fight against the authorities' refusal to divulge any information on their loved ones or where they are being held. There are serious reasons to believe that the fourteen disappeared have fallen victim to ill treatments since their arrests and risk being tortured: in 2003, dozens of people accused of terrorism were systematically tortured by the Mauritanian security services under the pretext of the fight against terrorism.

Alkarama notes that an enforced disappearance cannot be justified under any circumstance, and calles up on the Mauritanian authorities to respect the fundamental rights of prisoners under the protection of the law.