Authorities in Mauritania’s Brakna region have brokered a fragile peace deal aimed at ending a violent land dispute between neighboring farming communities, but deep political mistrust and unresolved questions about land rights suggest the crisis is far from over.
The conflict centers on farmland in the Waalo zone of the commune of Aéré Mbar, a fertile but contested area along the Senegal River valley in southern Mauritania. Farmers from the villages of Sabouallah and Aéré Golléré have clashed repeatedly over access to and control of this land, with recent confrontations described as bloody and leaving people injured and others in jail for nearly three months. Land disputes in this part of Mauritania are not new; competition between communities, pressure on arable land and overlapping customary and administrative claims have created a volatile environment where disagreements can quickly escalate. In this case, tensions grew serious enough that regional authorities felt compelled to intervene directly.
Eeere M’bar, Mauritania
On January 29, 2026, regional officials convened representatives of the two villages in Aleg, the capital of Brakna, to try to put an end to the violence, with the parties signing an official reconciliation document. The pact formally bans any direct confrontation between community members and requires all future complaints and claims to be submitted to state authorities, rather than taken up directly with farmers in the fields. It also warns that anyone who violates the agreement will face strong judicial and administrative sanctions, and it commits to the care of the wounded while including a joint request for the release of those imprisoned since the clashes. On paper, it is a classic top-down peace arrangement: stop the violence, channel disputes through state institutions and signal that further disorder will be punished.
The path to this agreement, however, was anything but straightforward. During an earlier attempt at reconciliation, community leaders from Aéré Golléré refused to sign the initial draft prepared with strong input from local elected officials, viewing that text as biased and unacceptable. At that point, a prominent mediator, Bâ Mamadou Moustapha, bypassed local politics and took the issue directly to the highest levels of the Mauritanian state, including President Mohamed Cheikh El-Ghazouani. His argument was that the conflict could not be resolved fairly as long as local politicians were driving the process.
After these interventions, the central state reportedly instructed the Brakna Governor to prepare a new, strictly administrative text, in line with national guidelines rather than local political interests. Local elected officials were to be excluded from decision-making and invited to Aleg only as observers, not as authors of the deal. Once in Aleg, however, things appear to have drifted back toward the old pattern. Local elected leaders are accused of having influenced the final wording of the document, inserting much of the earlier, contested version with only minor changes. For many in Aéré Golléré, this looked like a direct violation of the instructions coming from the presidency and confirmed their fears that local political forces still controlled the process.
Faced with a stalemate in Aleg, the Governor contacted Bâ Mamadou Moustapha by phone to help break the deadlock. Bâ ultimately advised the Aéré Golléré delegation to sign, arguing that the document now fell under the authority of the state administration, symbolized by the Governor and the Prefect, rather than solely under local elected officials. The delegation eventually agreed, and the pact was signed, but the decision did not erase resentment on the ground.
The mayor of the commune has become a particular lightning rod for criticism. He is accused of favoring Sabouallah and the Haratine community, both in how land issues are handled and in logistical choices such as holding key reconciliation meetings in Sabouallah instead of at the official commune seat in Aéré Mbar. For many residents of Aéré Golléré, this reinforces the perception that the playing field is tilted and that political and communal favoritism shape land governance.
While the Aleg pact has reduced immediate tensions and offers a framework to prevent new clashes, village leaders and local notables are clear that it is not enough. They are calling on the national government to address what they describe as a structural land problem in the Senegal River valley. Their concerns go beyond this specific dispute: ambiguous and overlapping land rights between communities, perceived political bias favoring certain groups or villages, weak, slow or selective intervention by administrative authorities, and a pattern of recurrent land conflicts that flare up, get patched over and then resurface. From their perspective, the Aleg agreement is only a short-term crisis management tool. Without a transparent, credible and durable land policy — one that clarifies rights, strengthens impartial administration and reduces the scope for local political manipulation — similar conflicts are likely to reappear.
For observers more familiar with land and resource disputes elsewhere in Africa, the Brakna case encapsulates a broader pattern. Land is becoming more politically charged wherever it gains value, whether from irrigation, agriculture or development projects. Central governments often step in late, after violence has escalated, then struggle to ensure that local power brokers do not capture the process. Peace deals that do not tackle underlying land governance issues can calm tensions temporarily, but frustration simmers beneath the surface.
In Brakna, the state now faces a clear test. If authorities can implement the Aleg pact fairly, release detainees where justified and move toward a more transparent and equitable land regime in Aéré Mbar and the wider valley, the agreement could mark a turning point. If not, it may be remembered as just another paper peace in a landscape where the real battle is over who truly controls the land.
