Mauritania’s Brotherhood reemerges thanks to COVID-19
While world countries are
relentlessly combating COVID-19 pandemic to save humanity, the Muslim
Brotherhood in Mauritania is taking advantage of the country’s poverty to reemerge
on the political scene by distributing food aid and medical supplies.
The Islamist National Rally for
Reform and Development (Tawasul), the Muslim Brotherhood’s arm in Mauritania,
intensified its activities over the past weeks in mosques and streets to hand
out food and medical supplies, i.e. masks and sanitizers as part of the
Islamist party’s propaganda.
The Islamist party issued a
statement on April 3 revealing that it had formed an emergency committee for
handing out hygiene kits and sanitizers at mosques in Nouakchott, in addition
to distributing staple foods across the country.
Despite the political dispute
between the Brotherhood’s Tawasul and President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, leader
of Tawasul, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Siddi, voiced his wish that his party would
take part in efforts made by the Mauritanian presidency to combat the
coronavirus.
Activists said Tawasul was taking
advantage of the coronavirus crisis to reemerge on the political scene in
Mauritania.
Mauritania’s Muslim Brotherhood owns
large commercial organizations of huge budgets across a variety of businesses,
i.e. pharmacies, gas stations, clothing stores, foods, car rental agencies, as
well as dealing in foreign exchange on the black market.
The Brotherhood has managed to get resources
enabling the Islamist organization to provide assistance in the face of the
viral spread.
Meanwhile, Mauritanian journalist
Abdullah Ould Mohamed said in a post on his Facebook page that the Muslim
Brotherhood had turned mosques into shopping malls.
