A coaching camp for the Senegalese girls’s basketball crew within the US has been scrapped, with the West African nation’s prime minister saying he cancelled it as a result of a number of the squad have been denied US visas.
Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko mentioned the crew would now practice in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, “in a sovereign and conducive setting”.
It comes amid reports that the US plans to impose fresh travel restrictions on 25 more African countries, together with Senegal.
Earlier this month the US announced a ban on residents from 12 nations, together with seven from Africa. There have been additionally partial journey restrictions on nationals from an additional seven nations, with three from Africa.
It stays unclear why the Senegalese athletes have been denied visas, because the US Embassy is but to publicly touch upon the matter.
“Knowledgeable of the refusal of issuing visas to a number of members of the Senegal girls’s nationwide basketball crew, I’ve instructed the Ministry of Sports activities to easily cancel the ten-day preparatory coaching initially deliberate in america of America,” Sonko mentioned on Thursday in an announcement shared to social media.
Experiences say 5 Senegalese basketball gamers and 13 crew officers have been travelling to satisfy different members of the squad and their coach who have been already within the US, to heat up for the 2025 Ladies’s AfroBasket event in Ivory Coast subsequent month.
However their visa functions weren’t accepted.
Senegal has probably the greatest girls’s basketball groups in Africa – constantly reaching the ultimate 4 in AfroBasket tournaments and boasting gamers from prime leagues within the US, Europe and Egypt.
The visa refusals are elevating eyebrows as a result of, in line with the lately leaked diplomatic cable containing particulars of the prolonged journey restrictions, focused nations got as much as 60 days to handle the considerations raised by the US.
These reportedly embody folks overstaying their visas, lack of co-operation with deportations, hyperlinks to terror assaults within the US, antisemitism or what it termed “anti-American” exercise.
Following the reported new journey restrictions, Senegal’s international ministry urged nationals to adjust to their permitted durations of keep within the US.
Though it didn’t immediately touch upon Senegal’s potential inclusion within the newest record of restricted nations, the federal government assertion underscored that diplomatic and consular companies have been working in shut collaboration with the US administration.
In the meantime, Nigeria’s International Minister Yussuf Tuggar mentioned the expanded journey bans might impede potential vitality and uncommon earth mineral offers which West African nations can provide the US.
The Trump administration insists nationwide safety considerations and the excessive fee of visa overstays from some nations should be addressed.
