"This year's Hajj pilgrimage was marred by extreme heat, with temperatures soaring beyond 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), resulting in over 1,300 fatalities."
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"Initially, we thought it was related to heatwaves because the temperature was excessively high, but we realised that there is a respiratory syndrome with the cases of death," Sy said."
The 44-year-old Faye will be the youngest president of Senegal. His victory is considered an upset–Faye is a self-described “left pan-Africanist” and his pledge to pursue significant systemic reforms in the country has been well received, in particular by Senegalese youth. Faye won as an independent after his party, the African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics, and Fraternity (PASTEF) was unilaterally dissolved in July 2023 in a crackdown on opposition protests by the incumbent government of President Macky Sall, as covered last year in Liberation News.
The leader of the party, Ousmane Sonko was arrested along with Faye and barred from running in the 2024 presidential election. Sonko and Faye, who had been arrested earlier in 2023, were released along with hundreds of other political prisoners on March 14–just ten days before the election. Their release was triggered by the Constitutional Court barring an attempt by incumbent President Macky Sall to postpone the elections over concerns about which candidates were legally eligible to run.
The court overturned this move, affirming that Sall must leave office on April 2. Sonko ran for president on the PASTEF ticket in 2019, receiving just over 15% of the vote. This year, Faye stepped in as the party’s candidate as Sonko’s legal eligibility remained in question and decisively won with 54.3% of the vote in the first round over incumbent Prime Minister Amadou Ba’s 35.8%.
Just finished 'I was an elephant salesman' by Pap Khouma. I read it because the author is a friend's uncle. It is a reasonable worm's eye view of a Senegalese migrant's experience in mid 80s Italy. The narrative voice of the first few chapters is excellent, but having set up an interesting character who is looking back on the travails of his younger self and full of things to say about Senegal, Italy, France and Germany we get a rather breathless account of a few years of selling. This is a shame. There is a bravura moment in which the sudden death of a friend is recounted. It is readable, full of insight but ultimately a failure of a novel (or translation).