Fury over crippling power cuts led to riots across Senegal overnight, leaving a trail of destruction as protesters torched government buildings and erected barricades of burning tyres.
Life returned to normal Tuesday morning, but a deafening hum of generators continued in Dakar amid another extended blackout, and post-protest debris littered the streets for the second time in less than a week.
The spontaneous protest came just days after President Abdoulaye Wade's regime experienced its worst-ever riots on June 23 as angry Senegalese protested against the 85-year-old's efforts to change election laws.
From Ouakam in the north-west of the capital to Guediawaye in the east, offices of state electricity company Senelec were pillaged and burned by the protesters, with vehicles set on fire and windows shattered.
It was not yet known if there were any injuries or arrests during the protests.
Often hailed for being a beacon of stability in west Africa, Senegal regularly faces protests over its unreliable electricity supply, which severely affects small businesses.
The state power company issued a statement Tuesday apologising for the blackouts, saying it "has been faced with a significant deficit in electricity production resulting in many power cuts".
Already struggling financially to buy fuel and maintain outdated and dilapidated equipment, the company said it has recently experienced new breakdowns in some of its machinery.
A Senelec official told AFP that since June 23, ten of its offices had been destroyed in Dakar and Keur Massar, Mbour and Thies to the east of the capital as power cuts steadily worsen, lasting up to two days in some areas.
"It is OK now, but during the night the youth were lighting fires everywhere," said Marie-Jeanne, a mother from the sprawling suburb of Pikine.
Protesters erected barricades and blocked traffic with burning tyres and tree branches.
The public anger against mounting power cuts first erupted in the coastal town of Mbour, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Dakar, where police fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.
"Everything is broken in the Senelec" offices -- computers and cars -- a witness from Mbour told AFP.
In a Dakar suburb, four vehicles were engulfed by flames outside a Senelec office, an AFP reporter witnessed Monday night.
In Guediawaye, employees of a tax office that was ransacked and burned during the protest milled around assessing the damage.
"There was a long power cut which began at 7:00 am (0700 GMT) and by 8:00 pm the electricity still hadn't come on. People are tired," a woman told AFP.
The latest protests follow closely on riots in the capital on June 23 where riot police fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands of protesters angry over proposed revisions to the constitution.
As a result Wade shelved the election law changes which would have added a vice president to the presidential ticket for next year's polls, and dropped the winning threshold for a first-round victory to 25 percent of votes from the current 50 percent.
Wade's critics saw the measures as a scheme by the president to avoid a second round of voting and line up his 42-year-old son Karim Wade, already a government minister, for succession.
The aging president is facing mounting calls to drop his controversial bid for a third term in office in February 2012 elections.
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