Police vehicles burned down, hospital attacked ... demonstrations calling for the end of the curfew broke out since Tuesday in several localities of Senegal, where the head of an influential Muslim brotherhood has called for calm, said Wednesday 3 June witnesses and a senior Senegalese official.
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In the town of Touba, seat of the powerful brotherhood of the Mourides, 200 km east of Dakar, the results of the night from Tuesday to Wednesday are "three police intervention vehicles and an ambulance burned , the treatment center for the sick in the Covid-19 attacked, the windows of the (electricity company) Senelec stoned, " the senior official, who requested anonymity, told AFP.
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Witnesses reported that post office buildings were also "attacked" in Touba and that demonstrators erected barricades and burned tires in the nearby town of Mbacké. Demonstrations also broke out in Tamba (east) and Thiès (west) on Tuesday, according to Senegalese media. The caliph general of the brotherhood of mourides, Serigne Mountakha Mbacké, intervened on television in the middle of the night, an extremely rare event, to request the stopping of the demonstrations in his city, the second agglomeration of the country with more than a million 'inhabitants.
Back to school postponed to a “later date”
"Go home." We will see tomorrow the source of the problems and how to solve them. I think we have never seen that in Touba, " said the highest official of the brotherhood, whose decisions have almost the force of law for his millions of faithful.
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Established on March 23 by President Macky Sall to fight the Covid-19, the state of emergency has so far been accompanied by a curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. and a travel ban between regions. It was extended until the end of June, even if the head of state announced on May 11 a relaxation of measures, such as the opening of markets and shops and the reopening of places of worship.
The start of the school year, scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed until the last minute to a "later date" , after the discovery of the contamination of 10 teachers in Casamance, in the south of the country. While Senegal has declared nearly 4,000 cases and 45 deaths from the coronavirus, many voices are calling for a more complete lifting of the restrictions. They cite the price paid by the disadvantaged in a country where around 40% of the population lives below the poverty line according to the World Bank and where many live from day to day informal activities. A decision is expected in the coming days on whether or not to maintain the measures decreed under the state of health emergency.
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