Two people were killed Tuesday August 1 in Dakar in an attack with an incendiary device against the bus in which they were traveling, said the driver of the vehicle, the Minister of the Interior and several officials.

Antoine Félix Abdoulaye Diome took care not to clearly establish the link between the attack on the bus and the protest against the imprisonment of the opponent Ousmane Sonko, declared presidential candidate of 2024. But, present on the spot with the charred carcass of the vehicle, he denounced a desire to “impose by a theory of unique thought what we want on our fellow citizens”.

He referred to “occult forces” which he had already invoked in June and which he said were at work in the context of unrest caused by the legal situation of Ousmane Sonko.

The episodes of repeated unrest that have accompanied the standoff between Sonko and the authorities as well as the justice system since March 2021 have given rise to riots, but also looting and attacks on public and private property and, on several occasions, against public transport.

« Cocktail molotov »

According to the statements of the driver, a company official and the minister, the bus which was traveling towards the center of Dakar on Tuesday from the suburbs found itself blocked by a group of individuals who had come down from a bridge in a working-class district on the outskirts of the capital.

According to the company’s official, Mbaye Amar, it was “protesters or bandits” who attacked the vehicle filled with passengers. The driver, Abdoulaye Diop, injured and shocked, reported on the spot to a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP) that a group of hooded young people had boarded the bus, had insulted him and that one of them had ignited an improvised incendiary device which he then threw.

The interior minister said the attackers, seven in number, had robbed the passengers of their money and mobile phones. “During this terrorist attack, we deplored seven victims, including two dead bodies and five seriously injured,” he said in comments posted on social media.

“What a criminal act, what an inhuman act to throw a Molotov cocktail into a bus carrying Senegalese,” he said, promising that the state would hunt down and arrest the perpetrators.

The detention of opponent Ousmane Sonko on Monday on various charges including calling for insurrection sparked protests. Three deaths had been reported in the south of the country and in the suburbs of Dakar before the bus attack.