2024-04-10 15:17:44
Around 200 travelers happily took the night boat between Dakar and Casamance (south), after months of shutdown hard felt by the population following unrest in the landlocked territory.
For the first time since June 2023, 233 passengers who boarded the ferry Aline Sitoé Diatta the day before in the capital disembarked quietly on Wednesday in the middle of the day under the sun and in the port effluent in Ziguinchor, a few hundred kilometers to the south, after a night of peaceful crossing along the Atlantic coasts and mangroves, then the banks of the Casamance river under the escort of a military vessel.
“We had really been deprived of our freedom, and now we have regained our freedom,” rejoices Louis Bakourine, a 52-year-old driver on the quay while handling carts unload around fifty tons of freight from the ferry. For Aliou Badara Touré also “it represents a lot of things”: this 41-year-old trader had difficulty selling his goods by road.
“We are very, very happy because we suffered a lot for nine months,” said Astou Sané, nurse, on Tuesday evening. “We were traveling by road, with (all) the work. When you arrive, you have the flu, you are tired,” she recalled at the Dakar pier before the Aline Sitoé Diatta weighed anchor afterwards. nightfall by sounding its foghorn.
The ship did not refuel with its 484 passengers because the notice of resumption was short, said the head of the ferry terminal Oumar Samb. But a certain number of people jumped at the chance to return to Casamance to celebrate, after a night on a simple seat or in a cabin, the great festival of Korité, the local name given to Eid al-Fitr marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Passengers broke their fast on board Tuesday evening.
With tickets starting at 5,000 CFA francs (7.6 euros), “it’s less expensive”, rejoices Alain Théophile Sané, researcher in medical biology. He took a cabin. “We can sleep during the trip, we arrive rested, fresh”, whereas with the road, “we arrive exhausted”.
In June 2023, the authorities suspended the connection provided by the three boats of the company Cosama (Senegalese Consortium of Maritime Activities) which have been transporting hundreds of travelers in both directions every week for years.
They provided no real explanation. The measure was taken in a context of deadly unrest to which Ziguinchor was prey, like Dakar and other cities, after the conviction of political opponent Ousmane Sonko in a morals case.
The cessation of the service was severely affected in Casamance, a fertile but landlocked region where strong particularism as well as the popularity of Mr. Sonko in Ziguinchor fueled suspicion as to the motivations for the cessation of the service.
Cosama ships provide, in the name of public service and territorial continuity, an important human and economic link by transshipping traders, tourists or students, as well as freight, fruit or fish from Ziguinchor to Dakar, electronics for example in the opposite direction.
Mango and cashew nuts
Casamance is largely isolated from northern Senegal by Gambian territory. The plane is unaffordable for many. The road is long and difficult.
The head of an agricultural products processing company, Xavier Diatta, launched a petition in October which received more than 5,000 signatures.
She denounced the impact of stopping the line on the employment and income of thousands of families and on the price of products transported to Casamance.
Mr. Diatta explained that a large part of the mango production had rotted on site and that producers were having difficulty selling fish and cashew nuts.
“We remained completely cut off from another part of the country for a very long time. We were put under embargo,” Pape Samba Cissé, a teacher, said on Tuesday on the pier. “Really, it’s a breath of relief for all the inhabitants of Casamance.”
Senegal remembers the terrible sinking of the ferry Le Joola which sank on the night of September 26, 2002 after leaving Ziguinchor. There were 1,863 dead and missing according to an official report, while the capacity of the ship was in principle limited to 536 passengers.
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