Villages attacked in the south

Armed men attacked two border villages in Casamance, southern Senegal, this week and took dozens of cattle, a media source in the Senegalese capital told IRIN on Wednesday.

The source said the attackers seized three herds of cattle - about 100 head, according to local radio - in Sankha and Sibithiong on Tuesday, forcing three shepherds to accompany them to the Guinea-Bissau border. They then freed the men and made off with the cattle.

The incident occurred in the region of Kolda, not far from its administrative capital, Kolda town - some 25 km north of the border - where Red Cross officials began on Monday to distribute millet and rice to people displaced by similar attacks from border villages.

A source at the Senegalese Red Cross told IRIN on Wednesday that some 27.6 mt of rice and millet were being distributed to 3,446 persons, displaced since May and June by the insecurity along the border. The food was purchased with the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he said.

Casamance, sandwiched between Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, has been the scene of fighting for 18 years now between the army and the Mouvement des Forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC), which wants independence from Senegal.

The MFDC’s spokesman in Banjul, The Gambia, told IRIN his organisation had nothing to do with Tuesday’s attack and other acts of banditry in Casamance in recent weeks.