to increased efforts to promote the return of refugees from neighbouring countries. In November 2007, a tripartite agreement was reached between UNHCR, and the Senegalese and Mauritanian governments for the voluntary repatriation to Mauritania of the remaining refugees in Senegal; around 24,000 had been assisted to do so by early 2012.197 The plan was for UNHCR and the governments of Mauritania and Senegal to complete the repatriation of some 7,500 Mauritanians in 2014.198 No similar agreement had been reached with the government of Mali in relation to the remaining Mauritanians there. Those who have opted to stay in Senegal still retain refugee status. The refugees are eligible for naturalisation under Senegalese law, and the Senegalese authorities have repeatedly confirmed that naturalisation is available to the Mauritanians; however, representatives of the Mauritanian community in Senegal state that they do not wish for naturalisation, but either resettlement in a third country or repatriation to Mauritania with full restoration of property and other rights. In fact, those Mauritanians who were refugees in Senegal and accepted assistance to return to Mauritania have faced difficulties in re-establishing their Mauritanian nationality, as the Mauritanian government has insisted on evaluating eligibility on a case by case basis. Although the Mauritanian government states that 90 percent of the 24,000 who returned under the voluntary repatriation agreement had received identity documentation, representatives of the returnees in Mauritania asserted that only 8,000 had obtained documents as of mid-2014 (leaving some with the paper approving their voluntary repatriation as their only identity document); and even fewer had recovered land and other property.199 In May 2014, several hundred of the repatriated Mauritanians walked from the Senegal Valley to Nouakchott to protest their situation.200 Durable solutions have been hard to find. At the same time, it is clear that many persons of Mauritanian origin in Senegal have obtained Senegalese national identity cards. While a Senegalese identity document is not proof of nationality (which is provided only by a certificate of nationality issued by a tribunal), it enables those who hold them to function more easily in Senegal: the Mauritanian refugees belong to the same ethnic groups as those who live on the Senegalese side of the river, and those born in Senegal are effectively indistinguishable from Senegalese nationals. In the long run, it seems likely that, while those who themselves fled the persecution in Mauritania will continue to reject the options available, the descendants of the refugees who have stayed in Senegal will blend into the Senegalese population; under the double jus soli rule, the grandchildren of those who fled will be eligible for nationality under 197 Tripartite Accord UNHCR and the governments of Senegal and Mauritania, November 2007; Tripartite agreement on return of Mauritanian refugees, UNHCR Briefing Notes, 13 November 2007; UNHCR, Stratégie d’intégration locale et moyens de subsistance des refugies Mauritaniens au Sénégal, 2011; “UNHCR completes repatriation of more than 24,000 Mauritanians”, UNHCR, 27 March 2012. 198 UNHCR, “2014 regional operations profile: West Africa” and “2014 country operations profiles”, Mauritania and Mali, available at http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c206.html, last accessed 03 July 2014. 199 Information from UNHCR Nouakchott, August 2014. 200 « Répression à Nouakchott d’une marche des rapatriés mauritaniens du Sénégal », APA 5 May 2014 ; « Société : Régler les problèmes des ex-réfugiés mauritaniens au Sénégal », PANA 12 May 2014 ; « Le gouvernement mauritanien s'engage à régler les problèmes des réfugiés rapatriés », PANA, 21 May 2014. 60