Four individuals have been formally charged in Senegal in connection with political violence that killed at least 65 people between 2021 and 2024, marking the first criminal proceedings stemming from that period of unrest. The charges — including crimes against humanity, torture, and unlawful confinement — relate to alleged acts committed against a specific victim in June 2023, during a wave of protests triggered by fears that then-President Macky Sall was suppressing political opposition and seeking to extend his rule. Prosecutors have framed the charges in a way that circumvents an amnesty law passed in the final weeks of Sall's presidency, signalling that Senegal's current government intends to follow through on its pledge to deliver justice to victims of what observers have called the most violent political episode in the country since independence from France in 1960.