As the four-day state visit of the Mauritanian leader reaches its climax, his host, the Gambian leader is indeed right in saying that ties between the two countries is more of a blood relationship. A close look at the relationship between these two countries would reveal that the factors that unite them are far greater than the geographical distance that today separates them.
History reveals that Gambian legend, Kunta Kinteh's grandfather was a Mauritanian. Apart from this single historical fact, the two countries are bound by a number of factors, religious as well as ethnic. The Africanness we boast of is strongly tied to issues of geography and ethnicity. And these are attributes that bind these two West African nations together.
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