Senegal: Demonstration against postponement of presidential election violently dispersed

In Senegal clashes broke out on Sunday afternoon, February 4, in Dakar, where the police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of people who had come to demonstrate at the call of several opposition candidates against the postponement of the presidential election of February 25. Men and women of all ages, waving Senegalese flags or wearing the national football team jerseys, converged early in the afternoon on a roundabout on one of the capital's main roads, at the call of several candidates.

"We came out to say no to this forfeiture, no to this constitutional coup," one of the protesters, Demba Ba, 36, told AFP.

The gendarmes, deployed in large numbers, fired heavy tear gas to disperse them. Then they went on foot or in pick-up trucks into the adjacent neighborhoods, in pursuit of the fleeing demonstrators. They were then pelted with numerous stones. Young people chanting "Macky Sall dictator!" began to set up roadblocks with makeshift means.