Queen Letizia meets with cooperation workers at the start of her trip to Mauritania

Queen Letizia began her visit to Mauritania on Wednesday with a meeting with those responsible for Spanish cooperation in the Maghreb country, who explained to her the main projects underway, focusing on health, food security and care for women who are victims of gender violence.

The meeting was held at Spain's technical cooperation office in Nouakchott, where the Queen of Spain was accompanied by the Spanish Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela, who travelled with them from Madrid, and by the Ambassador to Mauritania, Miriam Álvarez de la Rosa.

For around an hour, Doña Letizia, dressed in the red waistcoat that identifies Spanish aid workers, was given an overview of the general situation in the country and some of the thirty projects that Spain has underway in the Maghreb country by various officials from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and other humanitarian organisations.

Between 2014 and 2020, Spain earmarked 52.4 million euros to help Mauritania, one of the poorest countries in the world.

AECID has had a technical cooperation office in Nouakchott since 1998, three years after it began humanitarian work in the country, located in the middle of the desert on the African coast south of Morocco and Western Sahara.

After the working meeting, the Queen will visit several projects, the first of which is the distribution of fish so that the majority of the local population can receive this food.

She will be accompanied to this project by the First Lady of the country, Mariem Fadel Dah, wife of the Mauritanian President, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, who welcomed her yesterday, Tuesday, on her arrival at Nouakchott airport.