KAOLACK — Here on the banks of the Saloum River, the name of Cheikh Fall is almost forbidden. It sounds like a demon, not a human. “In any case, no one knew him, no one knew him,” people whisper in Kaolack, a town in western Senegal.
Locals are afraid of being associated with Cheikh Fall. "Even if someone did know him, they’re not going to say anything,” says Babacar, a local electrician. This is a story of an existence denied, a memory erased, and a line has been drawn under the effect of visceral hatred.
To mention him is to run the risk of seeing faces decompose and dialogue shut down. Frowns, embarrassed smiles, and sometimes even insults are heard between slamming doors.
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“I'm afraid to talk about it too. People will say I’m a “collabo,” Babacar says, as the half worried and half reproving look of his father, Bassirou. "It's a white thing to talk about this, it comes from the West.”
Here are the tragic details of Cheikh Fall, the 31-year-old who died October 27. His family has given as cause of death: “unknown reasons.” Less than 24 hours after his burial in Léona Niassène cemetery, his remains were dug up at night before being dragged off and then burned in the public square.
The unbearable scene was filmed, then shared on social media. In the semi-darkness, the animated crowd — between 150 and 200 people — swarmed around the burning corpse, calling it “goor-jigeen” (“woman-man,” the Wolof homophobic insult).
In Kaolack, the country's second largest economic city, the barbaric act was accepted and claimed: “In Islam we do not bury homosexuals in our cemeteries,” Babacar says, adding that nothing should legitimize the act he describes as “violent” and “inhuman.”
Legal and religious homophobia
In Senegal, where the vast majority of the population is Muslim (90%), and typically very religious, homosexuality is still commonly regarded as a “deviance.” This prejudice is validated by Senegalese law, which makes acts “against nature with a person of the same sex” punishable by a prison sentence of one to five years.
It was mirrored in the political discourse of former President Macky Sall, who recently tried to postpone the presidential election to December, which finally took place on March 24 and saw Bassirou Diomaye Faye elected President. Sall saw homosexuality as going against the national culture, an instrument of the West to impose its values.
This conservatism is growing stronger all the time: every year, demonstrations in the capital Dakar call for tougher laws against LGBTQ+ people.
Despite this, Caliph Serigne Tidiane Khalifa Niasse, the highest local official of the influential Tidianes religious brotherhood, who is also in charge of the Léona Niassène cemetery, denounced the events in Kaolack in a press release:
“I’d like to express our deep indignation and categorical condemnation of the reprehensible act committed against an individual, for whom we have no responsibility whatsoever in terms of his private life," Niasse said. "Under no circumstances can this act be justified or tolerated. (...) It is not up to us to decide who should or shouldn’t be buried in cemeteries. (...) Our faith is based on the teachings of Islam, which promote peace, tolerance, compassion and respect for individual rights. We condemn any deviant interpretation of our religion that would justify these acts.”
Inhuman act
For Cheikh Fall, but also for his family and friends, this night of horror was only the epilogue to a daily life plagued by persecution, rejection and fear.
“We first tried to bury him in the holy city of Touba, but they refused," says his sister, Amy. The hearse had already traveled the 110 kilometers (68 mile) from Kaolack to Touba with his body, but it couldn’t get in.
That Cheikh Fall was gay was widely known, and the religious leaders withdrew the burial permit. “We then tried to bury him at home, in his garden,” continues Amy. “That was his first wish: He knew that his burial would not be an easy task.”
But the neighbors protested, refusing to allow an alleged homosexual to be buried near their homes, and the local chief categorically refused.
People kept telling us that my brother was a whore and that he deserved his fate.
After all these attempts, the family finally obtained permission for Cheikh Fall’s remains to be laid to rest at the Léona Niassène cemetery. “It was too dangerous to do a ceremony, we had to bury him in secret. We couldn’t even attend the burial,” says Amy.
Next to the young woman is her mother, Diarra, who wanted to be present, even if she remained silent for almost the entire interview. “I don’t have the words to express myself, I don’t have the strength anymore,” she finally explains, her eyes worn out by crying everyday, before sinking back into herself.
“We just don’t understand,” adds Amy, on the verge of tears. “My brother, Cheikh Fall, was a human being, how is it possible to treat his body like this? It’s inhuman.”
A few days after the fateful night, Amy and Diarra fled Kaolack. Like fugitives, they shrank from the death threats and insults which have become a daily occurrence. They abandoned their home, which Cheikh had built to protect his family:
“People kept telling us that my brother was a whore and that he deserved his fate. They were coming to the house and throwing things at us…”
They’re now staying in an undisclosed location, far away. They left in a hurry and so took almost nothing with them. As the only memory of her son, Diarra Fall holds an old laminated photo from when he was a teenager.
“People made fun of him all the time, and faced verbal threats and physical intimidation,” says Amy.
Zeina, Cheikh’s best friend, a lesbian, who was contacted by phone for security reasons, said the abuse was constant. “But he was morally strong, he resisted, it never got to him. I admired him for that.”
The LGBTQ community on its guard
Cheikh Fall leaves behind the memory of a hard working and benevolent young man, despite the hatred that he was subject to. After his father’s death, it was Cheikh who financially supported his mother and siblings, by selling skin depigmentation cosmetics which were all the rage in Senegal.
In fact, he used them himself, and the latest photos of him show a young man with a lightened complexion. “He was a businessman who was very involved in the life of the town,” says Zeina, who lived with him in his house in the Ndangane neighborhood. “He was even a member of two tontines [a collective savings system widely used in Africa]. That’s how he managed to buy land to build his and his family’s houses.”
Dozens of people gathered to destroy and burn down the house.
Cheikh Fall was also active in the Union des jeunes engagés pour notre communauté, an LGBTQ+ association based in Kaolack which fights against the rise of islamism.
Even in Dakar
The evening Cheikh’s body was burned, a small crowd made its way to their home. “Dozens of people gathered to destroy and burn down the house,” says Babacar. Two months after, the entrances to the building are padlocked, but the daylight in the flaps of the gate reveals black smoke, burnt and charred materials.
Zeina has also received death threats, and now moves every three or four days. Shortly before we spoke, she was threatened with the same fate as her friend: “They said to me “we burnt Cheikh Fall, we’ll do the same thing to you”.”
Even in Dakar, she feels unsafe. “I can’t stay anywhere, it’s as if I’d committed a crime,” she says. “I don’t go out anymore. I feel like I’m in prison. Now I’m trying to find a way to leave the country.”
There are no words which can describe how scared we are to leave our homes.
Alassane (whose name has been changed), runs a shelter for LGBTQ+ people in Kaolack. “Since that night, LGBTQ+ people have been living in torment here. There are no words which can describe how scared we are to leave our homes."