Blood flowed again in the suburbs, and this time, it was in Thiaroye-sur-mer, in the “Medina Niang Oryx” district, that a young footballer was fatally stabbed during a fight that occurred late in the night from Sunday 12 to Monday 13 January 2025. The alleged murderer, barricaded in a house besieged by the crowd, was narrowly saved by the Thiaroye gendarmerie. He was taken into custody, reports The Observer.
Yesterday, Monday January 13, 2025, the day after the death of the young footballer Abdou Faye, time seemed frozen in the “Medina Niang Oryx” district of Thiaroye-sur-mer, where many residents had the impression that the tragic evening of Sunday January 12 never ended. “The image of Abdou Faye, running in all directions to beg people to save him, still haunts us,” testifies a woman in tears, according to The Observer.
In Thiaroye-sur-mer, we cried a lot yesterday after the broken flight of this young footballer with promising talent. Recently elected Best Player in a football tournament, we can tell that the boy, elegant and talented despite his young age, was at ease on the green rectangle. Alas, he will never again tease the football, and this, after a banal argument followed by a fight won him definitively, as reported The Observer.
According to witnesses who confided in The Observer yesterday in the neighborhood, it all started last Saturday, when two young people, the footballer Abdou Faye (16 years old) and another, presented as the younger brother of the alleged murderer A. Diaw, decided to settle their dispute with an explanation at arm’s length shortcuts. As on a football field where he always dominates his opponents, Abdou Faye manhandles his protagonist, sends him to the ground, heckles him and lets him go home.
The big brother decides to avenge his younger brother and challenges the young footballer. When his younger brother comes home, out of breath and tells him about his misadventure, A. Diaw, furious, decides to avenge him. In the street, he stalks the young footballer, waiting for the opportunity to confront him. Twenty-four hours later, on Sunday January 12, 2025, a ceremony took place in the neighborhood, bringing together a large part of the population, including young people. In the crowd, laughing, heckling and chatting with his comrades, the young footballer Abdou Faye is unaware that he is the subject of assiduous tracking. His every movement is watched by A. Diaw, the big brother of the young man he had mistreated the day before.
While the ceremony was in full swing, around 10 p.m., the two young people crossed paths. A. Diaw looks at the young footballer, provokes him and decides to fight him to avenge his younger brother. The blows rained down, violent blows were exchanged between the two young people before participants in the ceremony intervened to separate them. Things seemed to be calming down again, and everyone thought the incident was over. But what happens next will be dramatic, reports The Observer.
A. Diaw enters a shop, buys a knife for 100 FCfa and…
What happens next, no one sees it coming. When participants, including their peers of the same age, separate them, Abdou Faye turns his back on A. Diaw who leaves the scene without anyone noticing. He enters the neighboring shop, hands a hundred franc coin to the shopkeeper and asks him to sell him a knife. The late hour and the group of young people should have dissuaded the shopkeeper, but he grabbed the coin and handed a knife to A. Diaw, who concealed it in his clothes and left to blend into the crowd. When he saw the young footballer, A. Diaw rushed towards him and hit him violently with the knife, which he plunged into his chest. Seriously injured, the young footballer puts his hand on his chest and, in an instinct for survival, quickly runs to find his mother at the family home located less than three hundred meters away. Arriving at the family home, his hand on his chest, he shouted loudly to alert his mother: “Mom, I have been stabbed, I am going to die,” Abdou Faye kept shouting, causing chaos in the house. Very agitated, he came out into the street the next moment and collapsed. Rescue is being organized, reports The Observer.
“Someone tried to tourniquet his chest to stop the bleeding. Without success,” confides Mouhamadou Lamine Sall, who guided The Observer in the neighborhood. A chartered vehicle immediately evacuated Abdou Faye to Pikine hospital, located in the Thiaroye military camp, where he was admitted to the emergency room before passing away thirty minutes later.
Suspected murderer barricaded in house besieged by mob
After stabbing the young footballer, A. Diaw panics. He in turn tries to disappear, but the crowd begins to growl in anger. He quickly understands that he must flee to avoid being lynched to death by mob justice, so common in Thiaroye-sur-mer. He begins a frantic race, pursued by the crowd which ends up besieging the house where A. Diaw found refuge.
“Let him be given to us to suffer the same fate. To death! To death! (na dé, na dé) »chants the angry crowd, reports The Observer. The occupants of the house, reinforced by notables who came to reason with the crowd, refused to give in. It was in this atmosphere of high tension that a local notable alerted the Thiaroye gendarmes, asking them to intervene quickly to avoid “two deaths” in Thiaroye-sur-mer. An alert which made it possible to save the alleged murderer, brought to safety by the Thiaroye gendarmes, who arrived on the scene a few minutes later.
A. Diaw was taken into police custody. The district delegate took this opportunity to denounce the ceremonies which continue until late at night. “ This must stop. Whether they are family, folk or religious ceremonies, we must no longer accept that they take place late into the night. These are moments of great insecurity during which young people take advantage of them to settle disputes. The authority must take firm measures to say stop », Confided Birane Niang, the district delegate, as reported The Observer.