by Bate Felix, Sofia Christensen and Ngouda Dione
DAKAR (Reuters) – The death toll from anti-government protests in Senegal has risen to 15, police said on Saturday, after two days of clashes between security forces and demonstrators protesting the sentencing of opponent Ousmane Sonko.
Most parts of Dakar appeared calm on Saturday, but tensions remain high after violent protests left six people dead in several towns on Friday, a police spokesman said by phone.
On Thursday, nine people were killed in the clashes which broke out after the announcement of the sentence of Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison for “corruption of youth”.
The opposition says the verdict, which could prevent Ousmane Sonko from standing in the 2024 presidential election, was politically motivated.
In Dakar, crowds of demonstrators with masked faces set fire to tires and various objects and clashed with the police.
Crowds smashed windows and looted at least two gas stations overnight from Friday to Saturday in the communes of Ouakam and Ngor in Dakar, while a supermarket in the densely populated commune of Grand Yoff was set on fire and ransacked. Rubble littered the roads scorched by fires.
“The police couldn’t do anything, there were too many of them. The police had to leave after several attempts to control the crowd with tear gas canisters,” said Khadija, who lives near the ransacked supermarket.
Similar scenes were observed Friday in other regions of Senegal.
The government called in the army to support the many riot police still stationed in the city. More than a dozen soldiers guarded the Ouakam gas station on Saturday.
The United Nations, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have condemned the violence.
France said it was “extremely concerned” by the violence in a statement, and called for restraint and a resolution of the crisis in “respect for Senegal’s long democratic tradition”.
(Report Bate Felix, Cooper Inveen, Sofia Christensen, Diadie Ba, Edward McAllister and Ngouda Dione, written by Anait Miridzhanian, Sofia Christensen and Alessandra Prentice; French version Camille Raynaud and Kate Entringer)
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