A week following their tragic escape from Nouakchott’s central prison, the four jihadists were caught on March 11. After a shooting, three of them will be killed and the last arrested. At least that’s what we learned from a joint press release from the Ministries of Defense and the Interior. Big sigh of relief! Mauritanians kept wondering regarding this hunt. Had the escapees left Nouakchott? If yes, how ? Because the entrances and exits of the city were visibly well filtered. Anyway, the fugitives have been cornered. With this “masterstroke”, as the other would say, the Mauritanians are beginning to see things a little more clearly. But how might they have escaped from the central prison of Nouakchott, this penal colony nevertheless supposed to be one of the most secure in the country, insofar as it shelters dangerous jihadists, including several sentenced to death and whose t was not his first escape. How did the fugitives manage to deceive the vigilance of the security and defense forces for so long, all on the alert during this week? Where were they headed? Southern Algeria or Northern Mali? The investigation will determine it, as it will have to establish if and how these terrorists maintained internal and/or external connections with accomplices. Where did they obtain weapons of war which unfortunately mowed down three men? So many questions that Mauritanians ask themselves and will continue to ask themselves in offices, living rooms, public and private transport, markets, streets, schools and universities… Everyone is looking for information on this case. Legitimate questions, insofar as their country has been spared attacks, attempted attacks or infiltrations by terrorists since 2011, while our Malian neighbor and Burkina Faso are recurrent victims, their government and their population perpetually on the alert. live.
Paid strategy
Mauritania’s strategy to contain this pandemic which is plaguing the Sahel and spreading to the countries of the Gulf of Guinea is reputed to be profitable and therefore productive. The President of the Republic recently welcomed this during an interview with BBC radio. But it was the very day following this release that the prisoners of the central prison escaped. Warning shot?
In a press release published a few hours following the escape, the Ministry of the Interior called on all citizens to be vigilant and to cooperate with the defense and security forces in order to speed up the arrest of the dangerous fugitives. Mobile internet was immediately cut off for security reasons. Then it was the total blackout, feeding all the hypotheses. The Mauritanians wondered. The silence of the authorities echoed the rumors regarding the arrest of this or that fugitive. Who ? Or ? Under what circumstances? Normal, some will say, the affair was very sensitive and it was advisable not to thwart the work of the security and defense forces engaged in the hunt to settle this affair which fell in the middle of the pre-election campaign. All the political actors had chosen silence, respecting the “red line” that constitutes everything that touches on these. All except the RFD which produced a press release the day following the escape. We had to wait until Thursday 9 to hear, at the Council of Ministers, the government spokesman affirm that the arrest of the fugitives was a priority for the authorities and that the cut off of the mobile Internet, this means of communication so prized by Mauritanians would be lifted at the right time. But “what was the right time? many wondered. We had to wait until the day following the tragic outcome to be informed. A break which will in any case have allowed, it must be recognized, people who hardly spoke to each other within families, to resume language. Human and social relationships suffer from the Internet. We measured its weight during this long week.
That said, Mauritanians applauded the success of the defense and security forces in this fight once morest terrorists. They measured the true value of the peace and tranquility where they have the chance to live today. We can never say enough that there is no better than these two. Sleeping, waking up, walking, traveling without fear of stepping on a mine or getting hit by a bullet, quietly indulging in one’s activities and heating the pot. It is certainly not easy to be able to do so every day, but it is at least always possible when peace and tranquility reign around us…
Dalai Lama
