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The tension subsided on Saturday in Senegal after two days of clashes between the police and supporters of the opposition Ousmane Sonko, sentenced to two years in prison, who left 15 deaths and half a thousand arrests, the government said.
The day brought some riots on the outskirts of Dakar, but several neighborhoods that experienced scenes of violence in the last two days calmed down, Interior Minister Antoine Diome said.
This also announced “around 500 arrests” made since the beginning of this protest movement. Among them, some were active in political parties, but most had no affiliation, he said.
Previously, a spokesman for his ministry, Maham Ka, had told AFP that on Friday “six deaths were recorded, four of them in the Dakar region and two in the Ziguinchor region«.
In the previous day, the clashes unleashed after the conviction of the opposition leader had left at least nine dead, Minister Diome had said.
Authorities in this West African nation deployed armed forces to the capital Dakar on Friday, the day after one of the most violent protests in the country in years.
Ousmane Sonko, who came third in the 2019 presidential elections, was sentenced Thursday by a criminal court to two years in prison for “corrupting” a young woman under the age of 21.
The court acquitted him, however, of the accusations of rape and death threats against this employee of a beauty salon where he was going to get massages between 2020 and 2021.
Sonko denies the charges, alleging that the government of current President Macky Sall is conspiring to keep him out of the next presidential election in 2024.
2023-06-05 00:47:23
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