EU funding in highlight after Senegal protest crackdown

The assertion follows an Al Jazeera investigation that discovered the EU-funded Fast Motion Surveillance and Intervention Group, also referred to as GAR-SI, was used to suppress pro-democracy protestors.

The fee says it needs reassurances the GAR-SI unit is just used as initially meant; in cross-border areas close to Mali to struggle organised crime and to extend the safety of the civilian inhabitants.

It has additionally denied any data of models deployed by the Senegalese in opposition to the demonstrators, regardless of video footage of reported EU-funded armoured autos seen teargassing protestors.

The GAR-SI began in March 2018 and resulted in June 2021, says the fee. And it says the unit has since been embedded in an elite safety power managed by Senegal.

The challenge acquired cash from the EU’s Emergency Belief Fund for Africa, which is supposed to handle root causes of migration.

This comes with an obligation by the European Fee to make sure its programmes in Senegal don’t violate human rights.

It’s unclear to what extent such obligations are revered. And the fee does not have any documents on how human rights are revered in EU-funded programmes coping with border administration overseas.

In the meantime, Senegal has seen a spike of turmoil, following a February determination by president Macky Sall to postpone elections.

The transfer had been denounced as a constitutional coup by the opposition, whose chief Ousmane Sonko was jailed final summer time on revolt fees.