Day of rage and looting in Dakar

Press, 1 May 1989, Page 8

Day of rage and looting in Dakar

NZPA-Reuter Dakar Youths stormed through the Senegal capital, Dakar, in a frenzied day of looting Mauritanian shops, as international aircraft assembled to evacuate thousands of Mauritanian and Senegalese refugees from communal riots.

Security forces fired bursts of teargas throughout yesterday as youths smashed and burned the few Mauritanian businesses still intact. The death toll from rioting against Mauritanians rose to 38, including two babies brought to one mortuary with smashed skulls. Most victims were light-skinned Moors of Arab or Berber stock. Most Senegalese are black.

A number of countries such as France, Morocco and Spain were dispatching planes to shuttle refugees between Senegal and Mauritania.

Senegal’s President, Ab-

dou Diouf, strongly condemned what he called “the inhuman and degrading treatment” inflicted on Senegalese in Mauritania, but the stern-faced President, who earlier visited the first Senegalese refugees taken to hospital, appealed for an end to revenge.

“An attitude of vendetta would put at risk the lives of our fellow countrymen left in Mauritania,” he said in a broadcast address.

He said he and the Mauritanian President, Maaouya Sid’Ahmed Quid Taya, agreed during a telephone conversation on Friday on an early repatriation of their refugees. Blaming Mauritania for the violence sparked off by the shooting at the border of two Senegalese two weeks ago, Mr Diouf said he would welcome an international committee to look into the incident.

Wednesday will be a day of national mourning

in Senegal with flags at half-mast and prayers said in mosques. For the first time since violence erupted a week ago, children and welldressed Senegalese joined thousands of youthful rioters in free-for-all looting, especially in central Dakar.

The violence, in retaliation for what Senegalese refugees said were 400 dead in anti-Senegalese riots last week in Mauritania, also touched off a wave of panic-buying in other shops.

Armoured vehicles with mounted guns were sent to disperse a crowd marching for the second day in a row toward Dakar’s trade fair where an estimated 20,000 Mauritanians have sought refuge pending their repatriation.

An estimated 7000 Senegalese have similarly found shelter at a mosque in Nouakchott.