Some 100 armed men ambushed 40 vehicles 60 km north of the town of Ziguinchor on 26 February, beating up passengers and stealing money and valuables. A Senegalese army officer said the attackers belonged to the separatist Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC).
“I lost more than US $400 during the robbery,” the passenger of one ambushed car told IRIN. A woman from Guinea-Bissau who was on her way home from Dakar said, “The attackers assaulted me and other passengers.”
The armed men carried Kalashnikovs and were dressed in military fatigues, another passenger told IRIN. They went from car to car beating up passengers, he said, “They tied some people up, stealing their watches, mobile phones, and money.”
A low intensity conflict has simmered in Senegal’s southern Casamance region since the early 1980s despite various peace agreements.
Two men were severely injured in the latest attack, including a Senegalese military officer. They were taken to the regional hospital in Ziguinchor.
The ambush occurred on the Senoba-Zinguichor road, only a few kilometres from the Senegalese military base of Oilampane. But soldiers didn’t arrive there until 30 minutes after the attackers had left, an army spokesman said on local radio.
He said the troops came as soon as they got news of the incident. The military has since stepped up security along the road, he added.
Another officer told IRIN, “We do not have precise information on the attack but we believe [those responsible] were MFDC members led by Salif Sadio.”
Passengers said the assailants later fled north towards The Gambia.
After a period of relative calm, there has been an upsurge in robberies over the past two months, according to residents of Ziguinchor. Like the latest attack, many occur in the north of the Casmance which is thought to be controlled by Salif Sadio, but others have occurred near the southern border of Casamance with Guinea-Bissau where armed rebels regularly rob civilians.
The whole region remains a no-man’s-land between war and peace IRIN ARTICLE LINK, according to Vincent Foucher, a researcher at the Centre d’étude d’Afrique noir, in Bordeaux.
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
