New clashes erupted on Saturday evening in Senegal between opposition supporters and police in the Dakar districts, the third night of protests that rocked the country after opposition leader Ousmane Sonko’s sentence to two years in prison that killed at least 15 people.

Among the 15 dead are two members of the security forces, as announced by the President of Senegal. These are the bloodiest conflicts that have taken place in the West African country in recent decades.

Interior Minister Antoine Diem said there had been “about 500 arrests” since the protests began on Thursday.

He stated that Senegal is the target of attacks by “dark forces”. “There is foreign influence. The country is under attack,” Mr. Diom said. “Objects vital to the functioning of the country” were attacked to cause “chaos,” he continued, referring in part to the attack on a water supply station.

“We will not bow to these groups, nor to these foreigners who have come to plunder our country,” Tourism Minister Mam Ebaye Niang said earlier.

Security forces are still deployed throughout the capital, and the army has taken up positions at strategic points.

Many public and private buildings have been looted since Thursday, mostly banks and shops in the suburbs of Dakar. Some streets are witness to violent clashes with burnt cars, tires and rocks strewn about.

Yesterday, the US expressed “concern and sadness” over the violent incidents and called for calm to be restored.

In addition, the international community called for restraint and an end to violence in Senegal, a rare island of stability in West Africa.

Many social media sites, including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, were down last night, in a move by the government to prevent “the spread of messages of hate and subversion,” the report said.

“Resistance”

Senegalese are anxiously waiting to see if Sonko, who is running for the 2024 presidential election, will be arrested. On Thursday, he was found not guilty of rape but sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for corrupting a minor.

This decision means that he can no longer be a candidate. Sonko denounced from the outset that the case was a plot by Senegalese President Macky Sall to destroy him politically.

He said he was “locked down” at his home in Dakar by security forces who are preventing anyone from approaching.

Justice Minister Ismail Madior Fal said Sonko could be arrested “at any time.”

His party, Pastef, has called for “an expansion and intensification of the resistance (…) until the departure of Maki Sall,” whom she accuses of “dictatorial tendencies,” according to a statement on Friday.

For the government, the demonstrations that broke out are not “a popular demonstration with political demands” but “acts of vandalism and looting.”

Source: RES-IPE