As Senegal’s head of state prepares to take over the AU chairmanship in February, a group of NGOs held a press conference on Monday to ask him to make this a priority.
Following the trial of former Chadian president Hissène Habré by the Extraordinary African Chambers in Dakar, some 82 billion CFA francs were to be paid to some 7,400 identified victims via an African Union trust fund. But nothing has been paid to the victims so far.
The president of the Senegalese League for Human Rights, blame the delay in the compensation process to “a lack of political will by the African Union”.
Former Chadian president Hissène Habré died at 79 in Senegal, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 for crimes against humanity after an unprecedented trial.
It is also the first time a former African head of state was tried in Africa and also the first time an ex-president was found personally guilty of rape.