Rival rebel factions clash in Senegal
May 28, 2007
Rival factions among Senegal’s former rebels have been fighting for
the last two weeks in the southern Casamance region near the border
with Gambia, military sources said Monday.
Former members of the
Movement of Casamance Democratic Forces (MFDC) had been fighting near
Ziguinchor, the main town in the Casamance region, said a source close
to the army there.
"Some village populations in this zone have taken refuge in neighbouring Gambia for their own safety," he said.
The Senegalese army itself had not been involved in the fighting, he added.
Sources
close to the factions involved confirmed the fighting and said there
had been dead and wounded on both sides, without giving details.
The
violence appears to be between the supporters of Salif Sadio on one
side, and of Cesar Atoute Badiate and Antoine Diamacoune on the other.
Sadio reportedly opposed the December 2004 peace deal that was supposed to have ended the MFDC’s separatist struggle.
MFDC secretary general Jean-Marie François Biagui denounced the fighting in an interview Monday.
The
southern part of Senegal was for years the scene of insurgency by the
separatist Movement of Casamance Democratic Forces (MFDC), fighting for
the independence of the agriculturally rich Casamance region.
The
rebels signed a peace accord with Dakar in December 2004, but there
have since been occasional clashes involving either MFDC dissidents or
former rebels who have turned to banditry.
Ziguinchor is situated
about 480 kilometres (300 miles) south of Dakar. The Casamance region
is largely geographically separated from the north of Senegal by
Gambia, a former British-ruled enclave in French West Africa.
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