Fears country cannot afford generous gesture to earthquake victims as 163 chosen from 2,000 scholarship applicants
By Sheriff Bojang Jr.
Guardian.co.uk
Guardian, London- It is one of Africa's poorest countries, with simmering discontent over power cuts and unemployment with nearly half the population living in poverty. But Senegal has made good on a promise to give free homes and education to a group of Haitian students who lost everything in January's devastating earthquake.
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| President Abdoulaye Wade poses with Haitian students |
Senegal's octogenarian president, Abdoulaye Wade, the president of neighbouring Guinea-Bissau and the prime minister of Niger were also at the welcoming ceremony.
Adonis Verad, a 24-year-old medical student from Port-au-Prince who lost his entire family in the earthquake, was overcome with emotion. Punching his fist in the air, he said: "I have heard people saying that Haitians are originally from Senegal and right now I'm feeling that this is my root. I can smile now after many months of tears and trauma."
Outside, dozens of Senegalese students held up signs reading: "Welcome to the home of your ancestors."
But the scheme has been criticised as a grandiose gesture which the country can ill afford. Nearly half the population is out of work and the average wage is just $130 (£81) a month.
The Haitian students were driven in a motorcade to a reception hosted by Wade, and then taken to the westernmost point of Africa, where a 49-metre bronze statue of a family rising triumphantly from the ground looms over the Atlantic.
"Your ancestors left here by physical force," Wade told the students. "You have returned through moral force … When the slaves embarked on the ships, this is the last piece of African earth they saw … Dear students, it is on this point of land that sticks out farthest into the Atlantic that we have chosen to receive you," he said. "You are neither strangers nor refugees. You are members of our family."
The enormous monument, built by North Korean engineers, was unveiled this year, and is supposed to symbolise Africa's renaissance. But, like the relocation of the Haitians, it has received mixed reviews locally and has come to represent government profligacy.
The Haitian students were selected from more than 2,000 applicants in what officials described as a "very tough" selection process. They will benefit from a scholarship and free housing from the Senegalese government.
Nelsen Menendez said he planned to study statistics. "All our universities in Haiti are in ruins and we have spent months wondering how we were going to get back to school. But then came President Wade's offer and we are very grateful to him and the people of Senegal for standing by us," he said.
Wade has said that Senegal will pay for the students to complete their studies, but the country's universities have become the focus for discontent and are frequently paralysed by protests over the non-payment of scholarships.
Armed police have been posted at the main university, while many Dakar schools have been closed by flooding. Thousands of families displaced by floods are also sheltering in schools across the country.
Aissatou Thioune, a third-year law student at the university, said: "It's a good thing to help Haiti considering what it went through. But I don't think giving scholarship to over 160 Haitian students to study in Senegal is the best thing. Students here are facing so many difficulties and the government should have helped them instead."
Every year, thousands of Senegalese brave the Atlantic to reach Europe in flimsy wooden boats – just as many Haitians risk their lives trying to reach Florida.
"We are giving the rest of the world a lesson in humanity. Senegal has shown that it's in the hearts of the poor that you can find the gift of generosity," historian Iba Der Thiam, vice-president of Senegal's national assembly, told the Associated Press. "A country that is neither rich nor developed has agreed to share the little it has with its brothers."
