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Senegal takes in Haitian student refugees
Latest news, comment and reviews from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk, Sheriff Bojang Jr in Dakar, Thursday 14 October 2010

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.

Traditional dancers and singers * and the leaders of three African countries
* turned out to greet 163 Haitians who arrived in Dakar on Wednesday night.
The students stepped off a chartered plane to a rapturous welcome from
hundreds of people chanting: "Senegal for Haiti, Africa for Haiti."

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 Š When the slaves embarked on the ships,
this is the last piece of African earth they saw Š 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."