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Mourners' bus crashes, kills 2
31/12/2007 09:34 - (SA)
Dakar - Two people died on Sunday and one was injured after being ran over by a bus carrying mourners to the grave of the leader of Senegal's richest and most influential Islamic sect, said police.
"There are two deaths and one person was injured," a police official said at Thies, about 70km from Dakar, Senegal's seaside capital.
The bus was transporting followers to the holy city of Touba, where Serigne Saliou Mbacke, the head the influential Mouride Islamic sect and the personal religious adviser of President Abdoulaye Wade was buried.
The 92-year-old died on Friday. He was the last surviving son of Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke, who founded the Brotherhood in 1883.
Wade on Sunday visited Touba and met with the new head of the Mouride sect, Bara Fallou Mbacke, nephew of the last leader and grandson of the Brotherhood's founder, the presidency said.
100 most influential Africans
Senegal declared three days of national mourning on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with flags flying at half-mast.
Mbacke had built several Islamic schools in Senegal and figured among the 100 most influential Africans in a list drawn up by the French "Jeune Afrique" weekly.
His father, Ahmadou Bamba Mbacke, aided in the mass conversion of the ethnic Wolof people from tribal paganism to Islam and became the founder of the Mouride sect.
Many Senegalese looked to the Brotherhood for leadership in the fight against French colonial authorities.
Fearing a holy war, the French exiled him to Gabon from 1895 until November 1902, and again to Mauritania from June 1903 to 1907.
The Mouride wield tremendous economic clout in Senegal, where 95% of the population was Muslim. Many of its members lived in the United States and in Europe.
Their holy city of Touba, founded by Bamba in 1888, had grown to be Senegal's second largest after Dakar, with some 1.5 million inhabitants.
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