US activists denied entry:

Africa

A group of American anti-slavery activists were denied entry to Mauritania Friday after landing at the airport in Nouakchott, local activists and the US embassy said.

Mauritanian authorities refused to issue entry visas to the dozen activists who had arrived in the capital, Sneiba El Kory, an official with SOS Esclaves, a local antislavery NGO, told AFP.

Officially, slavery was outlawed in Mauritania in 1981 but the west African country remains a bastion of the practice.

The American activists left the country Friday night on a European airline after waiting for several hours at the airport, a Mauritanian security source told AFP, without giving further details.

“The United States is disappointed and concerned with the decision to deny entry to this delegation,” the US embassy said in a statement released late Friday.

Mauritanian authorities did not respond to requests for comment.

The refusal to issue visas confirms that the Mauritanian government has something to hide,” said SOS Esclaves vice president Ahmed Ould Weddia.

The US activists were set to be in Mauritania for a week on a trip organised by a Chicago-based anti-slavery group which is part of US pastor Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition. (AFP)

El Kory