Army admits that four soldiers died in border clashes

The head of the army in Guinea-Bissau admitted on Thursday that four soldiers were killed and 14 wounded in recent clashes on the Senegalese border with separatist rebels fighting for the independence of Senegal's Casamance province. General Verissimo Correia Seabra, the military chief of staff, told reporters that a patrol of Guinea-Bissau soldiers fell into an ambush set by the separatists. Last week, an army spokesman said there had been clashes near the border village of Jumbembe in Oio Province on February 9, but despite widespread rumours to the contrary, he insisted there had been no casualties in the engagement. Correia Seabra, who led a bloodless coup in September last year, played down the seriousness of the incident and said the situation at Jumbembe was now under control. His admission of army casualties followd a meeting on Wednesday with civilian President Henrique Rosa. Rosa has been charged with organising fresh parliamentary elections in this former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people on 28 March. The faction-ridden Movement of Democractic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) has waged a low-level guerrilla war for the independence of Casamance, Senegal's forested and swampy territory which lies between Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia, since 1982. Its fighters have frequently sought refuge in Guinea-Bissau.