UCAD calm after the riots, but damage keeps it closed

Calm has returned to Senegal’s leading university, University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), two weeks after violent demonstrations caused it to close until further notice, but the institution remains severely damaged, including the loss of thousands of archive documents destroyed by fire.

A smell of burning was still hanging in the air at UCAD in Dakar, even two weeks later and, at the humanities faculty, volunteer students were on their knees going through hundreds of documents that had been burned during the riots, trying to save what they could, reported Radio France International, or RFI.

The leading faculties of humanities and medicine had been torched, and the university assessed that 20,000 archival items had gone up in smoke, but UCAD’s Vice-Rector, Professor Bachir Niang, tried to be reassuring, reported RFI.

“What was burned in the faculty of medicine was an adjoining building for the archives containing administrative documents about the personnel – which exist in duplicate.

“As for the humanities faculty, they were records of enrolments. We were already going through processes to digitalise details of registrations, decisions and degrees,” he said.

But the damage continues to seriously disrupt the university’s operations, and its doors will remain closed at least until November, providing only online distance courses.

Rebuilding consensus

The nationwide protests, in which at least 16 people were killed, were sparked by the arrest of Ousmane Sonko, opposition rival to President Macky Sall. Universities were vandalised, UCAD most severely.

Raising the subject of the riots two weeks afterwards, Diaraf Seck, a professor of mathematics at UCAD and technical adviser at the ministry of higher education and scientific research, appealed for the university community to unite around a “solid consensus”.

Speaking at an international physics symposium at the University Iba Der Thiam in Thiès, Seck said: “These are very difficult times we are living through,” reported the Agence de Presse Sénégalaise, or APS. “It is extremely painful what happened at the great UCAD, recognised worldwide, a renowned pan-African university.”

He said the authorities were reflecting on how to relaunch higher education and research following the protests; and he explained that, in recent years, the government had invested much in universities, including XOF52 billion (US$86,520,400) to equip 100 laboratories.

Speaking about uniting around a “solid consensus”, he said: “Even if not everyone agrees on some of the details, we can at least say we have a consensus and we are not going to make changes to it.” – Compiled by Jane Marshall.

This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.