The Japan Times - 'Disgrace to Africa': Students turn on government over Dakar university violence

"I saw law enforcement officers beating students," said the young man, whose name has been changed for his protection due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

The footage showed several police officers in riot gear striking a shirtless young man with batons as he screamed.

For several days, protests rocked the capital's Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) as students demanded payment of grant arrears.

Senegalese students have been rallying over the issue for years, punctuated by sporadic clashes with law enforcement.

That violence came to a head Monday with the death of a second-year medical student in circumstances that remain unclear, during a police intervention that has sparked outrage across the country.

"It's a disgrace to Africa. In my country, they're killing students," said Boubacar, a 23-year-old geography student, who was waiting with about 30 others for a bus back home to the Matam region of northern Senegal.

Two days after the violence began, calm has now descended on the UCAD campus, where university gates and student residences remain closed.

Many students have gone home, unsure when they will be back.

Meanwhile, a few young people crowded in front of the campus residential area to retrieve their belongings.

- 'Tragedy' -

On Tuesday, the government held a press conference, calling the student's death a "tragedy" and admitting to "police brutality".

But during the conference, Interior Minister Mouhamadou Bamba Cisse also justified the intervention, accusing students of attempting to destroy campus infrastructure.

"The government is here to manipulate us. Why didn't they show what the security forces did on campus in the video?" Boubacar said angrily.

Like many young people in the country, he supported the current Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko and his Pastef party when they were in the opposition, before coming to power in 2024.

Students were at the heart of brutally repressed protests in support of Sonko that shook Senegal from 2021 to 2024.

With 75 percent of Senegal's population under the age of 35, young people played a massive role in bringing Pastef to power, moved by the promise of a break with the old system.

"The state betrayed us," Boubacar fumed. "We were there in droves to support them. I was 100 percent Pastef."

Beside him, his friend Kalidou Dia, 21, added that he was "really disappointed, the students did everything they could to help them win the elections".

Their opinions reflect those of the majority of students interviewed by AFP.

- 'Business as usual' -

On Saturday, Prime Minister Sonko accused the protest leaders of being financed by politicians.

His statement provoked a strong reaction from the campus's student collective, which is threatening to sue him for defamation.

According to the group, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and the prime minister are responsible for the death of the student, who they claim was "tortured to death by the police".

Ablaye, whose name has also been changed, came to retrieve some of his personal belongings from his dorm.

He was likewise a victim of police brutality, he told AFP, removing his cap to reveal a dozen or so stitched wounds on his skull.

He said that on Monday, he was alone in his room when police officers forced their way in, dragged him out and beat him in the hallway.

A second group of officers then beat him at the bottom of the stairs to the dorm, he added. Once inside a police van, he said, he was beaten again.

"Then they took me to another car and they beat me again there," the furious student said.

"When I was bleeding too much, they took me to the Red Cross," he told AFP.

The 28-year-old master's student was ultimately not taken into custody after medical personnel determined that he risked losing consciousness due to the large amount of lost blood.

Unlike his peers, he said he was not disappointed in the new authorities.

"I knew it would be like this with this regime, it's business as usual," he said.

"A break with the past is impossible."

K.Nakajima--JT