Mauritania: Refugees cautiously optimistic about new initiative

Tens of thousands of black Mauritanians living in exile for the past 18 years have officially begun the process of returning home from camps in Senegal and Mali but many said they were concerned Moorish Mauritanians would continue to discriminate against them. “We realize that returning to our country will be hard,” a spokesperson for the refugees, Amadou Wane, told IRIN at a camp in Ndioum, one of 284 village-like sites along the border with Mauritania.