Border with Guinea-Bissau reopened

Senegal on Tuesday reopened its border with Guinea-Bissau 10 days after youths from the Kolda region closed all entry points because of cross-border raids by bandits. “Now that the opening is effective, the government is once again going to approach those people who have been displaced, or whose goods have been taken, by armed groups who came from Guinea-Bissau,” ‘Sud Quotidien’ daily in Dakar quoted Interior Minister Mamadou Niang as saying. A joint commission was formed early in August between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau to restore goods that were stolen. That agreement had led border residents to lift a previous blockade they had imposed following the raids, in which at least 5,000 head of cattle were stolen, according to ‘Le Soleil’, another Senegalese daily. The blockade was also reimposed to press demands for medical and food aid for displaced populations and compensation for the victims of the raids.