The government of Senegal announced on December 31, 2024 that it had allocated 7.6 million euros (nearly 5 billion CFA francs) to compensate the victims of political violence in this country between 2021 and 2024, events having caused dozens of deaths and covered by an amnesty law that the authorities plan to repeal.
These five billion FCFA (7.6 million euros) “ are intended to support ex-detainees and other victims of pre-election violence from February 1, 2021 to February 25, 2024“, indicates a press release from the Senegalese government.
The distribution will be done according to criteria proposed by an interministerial committee, which have not been specified, as are the total number and profile of beneficiaries.
But 112 cases of “extreme emergency » regarding “ serious injuries and trauma » have already been supported by a government solidarity fund “ based on supporting documents“, specifies the press release.
Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko announced on December 27 that his government would table a project to repeal the amnesty law covering the facts relating to this political violence between 2021 and 2024.
This law was passed last March at the initiative of former President Macky Sall and before the presidential election which led to the election of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye at the end of March.
Elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2019, Macky Sall remained unclear in 2024 about his desire to run for a third term. The hypothesis of his candidacy had encountered strong opposition in the name of respect for the Senegalese Constitution.
Since 2021, Senegal has thus experienced episodes of deadly unrest caused by this standoff between the former opponent Ousmane Sonko, now Prime Minister, and the former government, combined with the vagueness maintained by Mr. Sall on a third mandate and social tensions.
Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds arrested.
Mr. Sonko was also targeted, from February 2021, by accusations of rape, the judicial treatment of which provoked deadly riots.
This amnesty, intended to ease tension in the run-up to the presidential election in March 2024, made it possible to release hundreds of imprisoned people from prison, including MM. Faye and Sonko.
With AFP
