In pictures: Senegal prepares for polling day
Photos capture the mood of capital city Dakar just days before the presidential election.
Dakar, Senegal – Just days before the country heads to the polls, the mood in the city remains ambivalent; there is a tension permeating the air, yet there is hope that the distrust and security concerns will come to pass.
Tension is high in Dakar, but the capital of this West African nation is hardly paralyzed by the wave of insecurity hovering over Sunday’s presidential elections.
Ten people have reportedly been killed in election-related violence, though official statistics place the number at six, and the scale of tension is unprecedented for a country known for being a beacon of democracy in a region beset by instability, with neighbouring countries suffering coups and civil wars since gaining their independence from former colonial powers in the early 1960s.
Al Jazeera’s Azad Essa captures the mood of the city with this series of photographs.