By Human Rights Watch

Whether fleeing conflict or risks of persecution in their countries, escaping poverty, or seeking a better life, increasing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers have taken the “Atlantic Route” from Africa’s northwest coast towards Spain’s Canary Islands since 2020, with more arriving by boat in 2024 than ever before. In Mauritania, a key transit country along the route, authorities have cracked down on irregular migration while the European Union and Spain have ramped up efforts to outsource or “externalize” migration controls. “They Accused Me of Trying to Go to Europe” documents abuses by Mauritanian security forces against migrants, asylum seekers, and people accused of migrant smuggling between 2020 and early 2025. Based on interviews with over 200 people, including over 100 migrants and asylum seekers, the report documents violence, arbitrary arrests, extortion, racist treatment, inhumane detention, and collective expulsions to Mauritania’s land borders with Mali and Senegal, where people have been exposed to risks in remote border areas – including due to active armed conflict in Mali. The report also traces the extent and impact of the externalization of border controls and migration management by the EU and Spain in Mauritania, including increased funding and other support to Mauritanian security forces, despite abuses. It highlights deaths and disappearances in the Atlantic due, in part, to inadequate search-andrescue, and reveals the negative impacts of Mauritania’s interceptions and forced returns of migrant boats, supported by the EU and Spain. Human Rights Watch calls on Mauritania to respect migrants’ rights, building recent efforts to begin to address concerns, and calls on Spain and the EU to ensure human rights monitoring of funded projects and set criteria for suspending funding if rights violations continue.  

New York: HRW, 2025. 160p.