After Senegal ordered universities to shut over the coronavirus outbreak, Ousmane Issaka, a student from Niger, found himself having to sleep on the pavement outside his shuttered dormitory in Dakar, with packed suitcases at his side but nowhere to go. Though he had displayed no COVID-19 symptoms, Issaka, 24, was concerned about inadvertently taking the virus back to his home village of Bengou and had decided to stay put following the March 14 order. Issaka said he and a few fellow veterinarian students from Niger spent two nights sleeping rough on foam mattresses laid on the cracked tarmac in the eerily silent street outside his dormitory. The university then learned of their plight and put them up in off-campus housing left empty by the exodus. Issaka’s group of around 15 Nigerien students have tried to isolate themselves, while maintaining as normal a life as possible. They keep up with their studies online, play soccer and send regular updates to anxious family members.
SOURCE: REUTERS AFRICA
