‘The state killed my brother’: Senegal in turmoil after deadly protests

Shot a tailor in the head. A baker killed by a bullet to the chest. A geography student planning to continue his studies in Canada was struck down by a fatal bullet in the back.

West African Senegal is reeling after clashes between police and supporters of a leading opposition figure early this month that left at least 16 people dead. Many families have discovered that their loved ones have died of gunshot wounds, raising suspicions that Senegalese police fired on demonstrators.

Senegal is often hailed as a model of stability in West Africa, but for years anger against President Macky Sall and his government has been mounting over widespread youth unemployment and perceptions of entrenched corruption. Mr Sall has also remained vague about his intentions to run for a third term next year, which most legal experts say would violate the Senegalese constitution.

Mr Sall has praised the professionalism of the country’s security forces, while his home secretary, who blames a “foreign influence” for the riots, has said the death toll could have been much higher had police not been restrained been.

Yet a different picture is painted by social media footage, testimonials from victims’ relatives and human rights defenders, and half a dozen death certificates obtained by The New York Times. The certificates all list the cause of death as live ammunition injuries.

The source of the bullets is not mentioned on the death certificates. But Amnesty International, which has counted 23 fatalities, said most of the victims died from bullets fired by police or unidentified gunmen operating alongside them. The Senegalese Red Cross said it had treated more than 350 people, 10 percent of whom belonged to the security forces.

“The state killed my brother,” said Issa Sarr, whose brother died on June 2 after being shot in the head in Pikine, a suburb of the capital Dakar. His brother, Bassirou Sarr, 31, was a tailor who invested his free time in his neighborhood by painting, planting trees and installing lighting to make the area safer, his relatives said.

The government has dismissed allegations that police fired on protesters and said it had arrested 500 people, some with firearms. The Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in several Senegalese cities earlier this month after the country’s leading opposition figure, Ousmane Sonko, was sentenced to two years in prison for “corruption of youth.” He was acquitted of rape and other charges, all of which he had denied.

Mr Sonko’s supporters, and an increasing number of public intellectuals and political observers, say the case was an attempt to dissuade him from running in next year’s presidential election.

As news of the verdict against Mr. Sonko circulatedprotesters set cars on fire, threw stones at security forces and looted property and businesses. Dakar’s central university, one of the best in West Africa, remains closed until further notice following rioters burnt multiple buildings.

The Senegalese government deployed the army respond to the protests. It also blocked access to social media for nearly a week.

Many families say the young men they lost had not even participated in the protests. Bassirou Sarr, the tailor, had been forced to close his shop because of the protests, like most businesses, and was shot as he stood on a bridge overlooking rioters who cornered police officers at a toll booth, his brother Issa said in a statement. interview last week. His account could not be independently verified.

Issa Sarr spoke as he waited to collect his brother’s body from a mortuary in Dakar. Minutes later, another family loaded the coffin of a man killed during the demonstrations onto the roof of a hearse. Mr. Sarr and two of his brothers gathered around the coffin with 20 others and prayed for the victim, Seyni Coly, a baker who died after being shot in the abdomen, according to his autopsy report.

Families of other victims shared similar stories. Elhadji Cissé, a 25-year-old geography student who was about to move to Canada this summer for college, was returning from a mosque when he was shot in the back, according to his family. The bullet pierced his right lung and exited his arm, according to an autopsy report.

With three-quarters of Senegal’s population under the age of 35, most of its 17 million people have only known democracy. Although Senegal has seen sporadic episodes of political violence since independence from France in 1960, it has long prided itself on its culture of free speech and multiple political parties – in a region where coups are common and aging leaders cling to power.

But that exceptionalism has been called into question as the country faces its worst political crisis in decades. In recent years, demonstrations against Mr. Sall have become more violent, political opponents have been jailed, journalists arrested and news organizations suspended.

2021, Mr. Sonko’s arrest, following allegations of rape by a massage parlor employee, sparked demonstrations and left 14 people dead in six days. But according to human rights groups, the police response was more violent this year.

Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation.

Mr. Sonko, who was sentenced on June 1, has yet to be arrested. Stranded at his home in Dakar, he has not condemned the violence but called for more unrest. More than half a dozen protesters hospitalized after being injured in the protests and interviewed by the Times last week said they would continue to demonstrate against Mr. Sall’s government(Mr Sall was elected in 2012 after defeating an incumbent president who had confused many in Senegal by trying to claim a third term.)

“I don’t regret anything,” said Samba, a 23-year-old protester who was released from a hospital in Dakar last week after being shot in the chest. He asked to be identified by his first name only for fear of government retaliation.

“The injustice in this country must stop,” he added, referring to Mr Sonko’s persecution.

But the battle has also alienated more moderate Senegalese who favor dialogue, observers say.

“Political parties, both in power and in opposition, rarely emphasize that violence is not the solution or that institutions should be respected,” said Guillaume Soto-Mayor, a Dakar-based researcher at the Middle East Institute. “Those same institutions, most recently the justice system, and their leaders have lost their credibility.”

As hospitals evacuated their wounded, families buried their loved ones in Ziguinchor, a town in southern Senegal where Mr. Sonko is the mayor, and in Dakar and its suburbs.

The body of Mr Sarr, the tailor, was released by authorities on Thursday, six days after his death. As relatives and acquaintances lined up in a narrow alley outside a mosque on Friday, the imam urged young mourners to think twice before acting.

“Your parents need you alive, not dead,” he said.

Saly Sarr, one of Bassirou’s aunts, said she had had time to think about Senegal’s future while waiting for his body to be released.

“What happens when our children grow up in a country where the police shoot their own people with real bullets?” she asked earlier at the family’s house. “They will only create more insurgents.”

Mady Camara reporting contributed.