DAKAR, Senegal — The most widespread demonstrations in Senegal in years continued for the third day on Friday, an expression of anger at the president, Macky Sall, and outrage at the arrest of the country’s leading opposition figure, who has been accused of rape.
In Dakar, the capital, crowds of young people threw stones at the police, who were firing tear gas. In the residential neighborhood of Medina, a police van accelerated into a cluster of protesters, almost running them over. In Ngor, a fishing village abutting the city’s fanciest district, protesters lit fires in the streets.
One person died on Thursday when security forces used live ammunition on protesters in Bignona, a town in the country’s south, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International.
The arrest of the opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, on Wednesday was the trigger for Senegalese young people, many of whom support Mr. Sonko, to take to the streets. Mr. Sonko, who came in third in the 2019 presidential elections, has been accused of raping a young woman who worked in a massage parlor.
wrote, adding that the event “boasts of being exemplary, by always comparing itself to less successful ones on the continent.”