Top Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour has just paid a visit to Ziguinchor, the main town in the Casamance region of southern Senegal, at the invitation of the Senegalese Red Cross and the ICRC, a matter of days before World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day on 8 May.

During the visit the Senegalese star presented "Music goes to war", the documentary film about the So Why? album title track, to secondary school pupils in Ziguinchor. The film traces the journey made by the six African musicians who composed and performed the songs on the album and, through the ICRC, met victims of conflict on the African continent (South Africa, Angola, Liberia and Kenya). After showing the documentary, the singer gave a performance of the song Solidarité, with the 2,000 people present immediately joining in.

In the coming months Senegalese Red Cross volunteers will be organizing further showings of the documentary in the area around Ziguinchor. At these sessions 20,000 copies of a textbook designed by the ICRC containing information on the Red Cross and its principles will be distributed to schoolchildren.



Youssou N'Dour also inaugurated a new Red Cross health centre in Ziguinchor, named after Red Cross founder Henry Dunant, the 170th anniversary of whose birth is being celebrated on 8 May. The centre, built as a result of Senegalese Red Cross-ICRC cooperation, will give the disadvantaged local population access to basic medical care.

Finally, the musician visited patients at the regional hospital in Ziguinchor, where the number of wounded increased following renewed hostilities between the Senegalese army and the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance last summer. Hundreds of injured people have been treated there, and the ICRC has supplied 1,700 kg of medical equipment since November 1997. Youssou N'Dour was particularly moved at the sight of a three-year-old girl who had lost a leg in a mine explosion.