Senegal

Police are detaining leading Senegalese rappers Simon and Kilifeu as nationwide protests continue to rock the West African state. The security personnel Friday fired tear gas as well as rubber bullets to disperse pro-opposition demonstrators, comprised mainly of rappers called Y en a marre (enough of it). Simon and Kilifeu were arrested after they managed to surface in the city centre at the head of dozens of their colleagues, after they bypassed several points manned by armed riot police.

As the body count rises from the conflict between members of the separatist Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) and the Senegalese army, Casamancais are starting to lose hope that they will ever see a path to peace. The latest in a string of killings by rebels took place on 14 and 15 February in Sindian (near the Gambian border 100km north of the Casamance capital Ziguinchor), when four Senegalese soldiers were killed and nine wounded in clashes with the MFDC during a Senegalese...read more

Senegal's police on Tuesday 14 February blocked youths from settling in a square in Dakar where they planned a permanent sit-in to protest President Abdoulaye Wade's bid to run for a third term in February polls. Scores of police were deployed on and around Obelisk Square, preventing members of rapper-led youth movement 'Fed Up' from gathering for their protest.

Human-rights groups in Senegal, including the local branch of the UK-based Amnesty International, have condemned police violence during an opposition rally in which one person was killed. Officers used tear gas and water cannons to break up the protest in the capital, Dakar, on Tuesday night, attended by an estimated 10,000 people in what until now had been one of Africa's most stable countries.

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The deadly violence that has broken out in Senegal seems surreal even to the most seasoned analysts of the West African nation’s political evolution. Angry Senegalese believe President Wade has executed a coup to stay in power.

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