Senegal team to probe killing of 13 youths

A MINISTERIAL fact-finding mission was headed to Casamance in southern Senegal yesterday, hours after 13 youths were killed in the first upsurge in violence in the isolated region in years.

President Macky Sall condemned what he called an “armed attack of rare barbarity” and summoned his national security council after the attack on Saturday.

The youths were collecting wood in the Bayotte forest, 20km from the regional capital Ziguinchor, “when they were attacked by an armed band of 15 people”, spokesman Abdou Ndiaye said.

A source in Ziguinchor said that 13 youths were killed and two were able to escape, with Ndiaye adding that seven others had been injured in the attack.

The Senegalese Press Agency said the assailants would have passed a buffer zone between the Senegalese army and separatist rebels of the Movement for Democratic Forces in Casamance (MFDC).

The rebels began fighting for independence army in December 1982 but have long ceased their frequent attacks on soldiers.

“It is too early to say whether the attackers were members of the MFDC,” Ndiaye said. “The inquiry will tell us that.” The army had deployed 150 troops to evacuate the victims and flush out the perpetrators.

Casamance, separated from the rest of Senegal by The Gambia, has been calm for several years since Sall took power in 2012, though peace talks have failed to yield a definitive settlement. — AFP