Journalists and demonstrators mixed up. The forces of order, don’t make much of a distinction between men armed with waistcoats, cameras and microphones, and other people armed with stones, masks and bottles of vinegar. We gas, and that’s that.

It was last Sunday, at the Saint-Lazare cemetery: a Dakar section of the People had come to bury the corpse of an election that had died in embryo, following the intervention of a decree. A past Monday, another section had come to mourn in the vicinity of the National Assembly. The tears did not move some MPs.

Death by decree was not enough. A second death had to be added to the first. The election corpse, as decided by the representatives of the People, will have to wait until 15 December to (hopefully) be resurrected. But Senegal is a country of believers, and Dakar is a capital of mosques and churches. Sunday, a holy day. Friday, another Lord’s Day. And symbolically, after the prayer, people gathered at the Place de la Nation. Just in time for a miracle of resurrection before December.

Screening begins at the Ministry of Culture. Slight screening, because you can get through. Only, a Wahani Johnson Sambou warns: go through, but you will be turned away. We go through. A.D. in « tic », his rastas firmly attached, had abandoned his « thiak-thiak » in Grand-Dakar. He came to answer the call, which went out on Whatsapp, Facebook and other distribution channels. The young man had the reflex to avoid the main artery of Brt and take the secondary roads to join the other demonstrators in Fass.

At the Nation’s Brt stop, a group of journalists. The waistcoats are there, the equipment…, but nothing helps. A uniform with a gun throws a gas canister, not just to disperse the journalists: he throws it directly at the crowd. Save yourselves, equipment packed up, escape. In front of a house, however, people are eating their Ceebu jën. Red, full of fish and vegetables. The gas thrower says that people grouped together to eat should not be allowed to gather in front of their house. Unthinkable, these people, in mourning, can’t help having people outside their homes. And over a bowl of food, people shout out loud between two spoons. One says that if this passes, he’ll resign from the Civil Service. « This »… « Ñii ay dëmm lañ… » (« These people are s… »), blurts a Baay Faal, exasperated by the attitude of the men in uniform. Always, around the bowl of Ceebu jën.

Serial Number: 6… Mission: to gas. Target: journalists
It was not yet 4pm, and the sky over Fass was tinged with two types of smoke. The tear gas from the Fds mixed with the blacker smoke from the small tyre and wood fires set by the demonstrators. Coughing. Weeping. A house near the Nation”s bus stop had left ice melting on its door. Probably to bring about peace.

For its part, the El Mansour mosque in Grand-Dakar recommended 111 « Yaa Salaamu » to be prayed as part of the rosary after the weekly prayer. But nothing! It seems that on Friday 9 February 2024, the gates of heaven through which prayers and supplications pass are closed…

Closed shops and workshops! A metal worker complained… and took refuge in a house, just a moment before the Fds came through. They paraded around on foot and in cars, one of which had seized demonstrators behind it. No beatings were observed on board, unlike the van parked near the Ministry of Culture. Nearly 5pm: there were insults and beatings of demonstrators…

A mixture of gas… and events. No one knows how he ended up in this crowd, which was pelting him with stones, but one young man was trapped there, among several others, and received blows and… stone blows to the head. Some said he was a « thief », others said he had insulted an old woman. One thing is certain: he had to collapse in front of the gas throwers to escape being lynched. Saved by those who, paradoxically, others flee from and regard as executioners. Saviours and executioners, and among them, a fair-skinned man, who threw tear gas at the very feet of the journalists he was harassing, to make them cross quickly.  Absa Hane of Seneweb speaks out against the stalker, and things get heated. Mor Amar intervened: nada, the woman was taken away. She was later released and taken to a health facility for treatment. This zealot: the same one who threw the projectile at the crowd of journalists in front of the house in mourning at the Nation’s Brt stop. The same one who threw the projectile at the feet of the journalists crossing the road. This one, of fair complexion, with 

6… inscribed in white on his uniform!

And Fass has been smoking, on this « Liberation Friday ». From this neighbourhood, you can see Colobane, which has also lit up. The « Allahu Akbar » of Massalikul Jinaan, announcing the 5 p.m. prayer, was diffused in a holy day sky with no apparent light. The mosque and its dome were drowned in a blackened celestial tableau, depicting a city that had fired more than one shot. To the left, Massalik could see Niary Tally immersed in the same atmosphere as Fass and Colobane…

By Moussa SECK