The World - News from April 26, 1989

As tensions mounted over a West African land dispute, gangs of angry Mauritanians in their capital of Nouakchott sacked the shops of Senegalese, forcing the government to impose a dusk-to-dawn curfew. In the Senegalese capital of Dakar, 375 miles away, anti-Mauritanian violence was not quelled until the army was called out. The neighboring countries reinforced their troops along their Senegal River border. The violence has been sparked by a dispute over the right of Senegalese to farm on a river island. Passions were further inflamed by the April 9 killing of two Senegalese farmers allegedly shot by Mauritanian soldiers in a border village.