In Senegal, it is mourning and anger this Wednesday in the town of Ngor, west of Dakar, after two days of violent clashes between young people and the police. Officially, the Ministry of the Interior reported an “accidental” death, but the toll could be heavier according to the inhabitants of the district, particularly affected by the land tension. Since mid-April, the young people of Ngor have been opposing the construction of a gendarmerie brigade on disputed land.
With our correspondent in Dakar, Charlotte Idrac
The streets of Ngor are littered with stones, burnt pallets and broken glass. Abdoulaye Haïdara shows us his bandage on his chest. He claims to have been injured during the clashes with the police. “ It’s a white ball. I was in the background, they were entering houses and rooms at night and they gassed. There are serious injuries assures the young man.
The Senegalese Red Cross claims to have taken care of 16 wounded. One of his vehicles was stoned and set on fire by individuals not yet identified “.
The gendarmerie is massively deployed around the site – called “the parking lot” -, a 6,000m2 plot where the brigade is to be built. The inhabitants of the district, them, claim the construction of a high school. ” It is a site that is sacred to this village because it bears the name of a scholar. Apart from that, the municipality has planned to build a high school there because currently we have problems for our children who, to go to secondary school, have to go to other places to study. It is a priority compared to the establishment of a brigade “, explains the dean of the district.
The state’s proposal to divide the land in two is not unanimous for Mamadou Sambe, a succession of land problems has created too much frustration. “ Land has always been our problem. The houses of 500 m2, 200 people live there. The south of the airport, it belonged to our grandparents, they transformed everything into luxury houses to the detriment of the populations “, he laments.
Several opposition leaders have called for the ” solidarity with the populations of Ngor. Other voices reject any political recovery “.