In Senegal, the suicide of a student reveals a malaise in universities

In the image of his farewell post published on Facebook, Matar Diagne, 27, displays a broad smile. Looking towards the horizon, the student poses alone on the Faidherbe bridge, one of the emblematic buildings of the city of Saint-Louis in Senegal . His radiant face contrasts with his words. "I will no longer be alive when you read this message ," he says, announcing his suicide. I prefer to die with dignity rather than live in dishonor." Matar Diagne hanged himself on the night of February 10 to 11.

To explain this "dishonor" , he mentions six times his "isolation", amplified by the "suffering of the illness" without any other mention of the illness that affected him. He describes his psychological distress and the lack of support. Before his gesture, the master's student in law highlights social "pressure" and demands that funds paid for the publication of a manuscript sent to a publisher be used to "treat [his] mother's stroke."

His suicide sparked a wave of emotion on social media and in Senegalese media. Viewed and commented on online tens of thousands of times, his words urging people to listen – “Don’t isolate anyone, don’t ignore anyone (…). Get closer to people who isolate themselves, talk to them (…) without judging them” – were picked up on the front pages of the country’s newspapers.

The government daily Le Soleil wrote that this testimony acted as a "mirror of the ills that Senegalese society suffers from" and called for "lessons to be learned from this silent cry" to prevent "other young people from succumbing to despair" . However, no political reaction was made.

"The Matar tragedy first illustrates the taboo surrounding mental health, especially that of men," says Fatou Fall, president of Safe Open Space (SOS). Reading her letter, the woman who was among the first to set up listening cells in Senegal had "a feeling of déjà vu."

“Six years ago, an anonymous Senegalese man announced on Twitter [X, today] his suicide,” she explains. He made it public by suggesting that “perhaps [his death] would help some people to behave better with people.” The activist saw this as an echo of the “slander and unfounded accusations” denounced by Matar, and “ persistent proof of the stigmatization of mental health in Senegal.”

Signs of the lack of public concern, the only official data available date from 2019. With 38 psychologists and psychiatrists for 18 million Senegalese, the “ratio of one therapist for 475,000 inhabitants remains alarming”. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 25 times more. “And there is an urgent need for prevention in the face of an extremely young population,” recalls ^Ms. Fall, while three out of four Senegalese are under 35, according to official statistics.

In Saint-Louis, Matar's suicide created "a shock wave" and provoked "an ambivalent response from academic authorities," according to Al Jabbar Adebo, also a student at Gaston-Berger University (UGB). Trained in November 2024 in active listening by the SOS association, the engineering student participated in the gathering organized in one of the amphitheaters three days after the student's suicide.

" The rectorate presented it to us as a collective therapy," he says. "It was more like a communication operation," comments another participant who wished to remain anonymous. In front of the hundred students who took part in the meeting, an administrative agent of the university called for "resilience" and to "build up an iron morale" , according to the same source denouncing a "counterproductive initiative" .