The offensive aims to dismantle the bases of the leader of the Casamance Democratic Forces Movement (MFDC), Salif Sadio.
Le Monde with AFP
The Senegalese army announced on the night of Sunday 13 to Monday, March 14, having launched an operation against Casamance rebels, the theater of an old conflict in the south of the country. This offensive occurs less than two months after the death of four Senegalese soldiers and the capture of seven others by the rebels in the border area with the Gambia.
The seven soldiers, members of the West African military mission in The Gambia (ECOMIG), have been released since by Salif Sadio, a military leader of the Casamançaise rebellion, of which men had captured them.
“As part of their reasons for the security of people and property, the armies launched on Sunday, March 13, 2022 an operation whose main objective is to dismantle the basics of the MFDC faction [Movement of the democratic forces of Casamance] of Salif Sadio Located along the North Frontier “With the Gambia, says Senegalese staff in a statement.
“This operation also aims to destroy all armed tapes leading criminal activities in the area. The armies remain determined (…) to preserve at all costs the integrity of the national territory”, “he says.
In the nearby Gambia, populations “have been affected by heavy weapons detonations and fallen shells” in villages on the border with Senegal, says the Gambian government in a statement published Monday.
The oldest conflict on the continent
Since the night from Sunday to Monday, “several displaced people and refugees from the border [Senegalese] began to arrive in the villages [Gambians close to Senegal] of Foni Bintang, Foni Kansala and Foni Bintang Karanai and have been recorded, “says the press release.
The Gambian President Adama Barrow “ensures” that his country “will not serve as a rear base with anyone and authorizes no one to enter with his weapons and ammunition”. He calls for a “peaceful” solution of the Casamance conflict.
The Casamance, separated from northern Senegal by the Gambia, is the theater of the oldest conflict of the continent since independentists took the maquis with a rudimentary armament after the repression of a MFDC march in December 1982. The Rebellion has flourished on the peculiarism of this fertile but isolated largely from Senegal by the Gambia and inclined to the feeling of abandonment.
After making thousands of victims and ravaged the economy, the conflict persisted by little fire, with hot shots like the massacre of fourteen men near Ziguinchor in 2018. The trial of these events is planned in a few days.
In recent years, the Senegalese authorities have begun to reinstall the displaced. The army launched in January 2021 an operation against the bases of the MFDC in order to allow these returns and to end the flourishing traffic of wood and cannabis, to which it accuses the rebels to take part.