The World - News from April 27, 1989

Rioters have stabbed, stoned or clubbed to death at least 40 people and wounded nearly 700 in two days of attacks against Senegalese living in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, hospital sources said. Troops were on patrol in the city and in Dakar, capital of neighboring Senegal, where Mauritanian traders and shops have been attacked. There was no reliable word on the number of casualties outside Nouakchott. Both governments appealed for calm and began repatriating victims who wanted to leave. The violence in the two countries on the edge of the Sahara was sparked by competing claims to farming areas on an island in the Senegal River, which forms the border between the two western Africa nations. The dispute flared into violence on April 9.