Senegal: Four soldiers killed in anti-tank mine explosion in Casamance

In Senegal, four soldiers were killed when an anti-tank mine exploded as their vehicle passed through Casamance, a region in southern Senegal plagued by a separatist rebellion, the army announced on Friday (December 15th).

A Senegalese soldier in the Blaze forest in southern Casamance (Illustrative image). © JOHN WESSELS/AFP

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With our correspondent in Dakar, Léa-Lisa Westerhoff

It was Friday night at nightfall that the accident took place. While the military vehicle was on a routine patrol in northern Casamance, not far from the border with Gambia, an anti-tank mine exploded as the 4x4 passed, according to the Senegalese army's director of information, Colonel Abdou Ndiaye. One soldier was killed instantly, the other three died a short time later. Three soldiers are still injured.

According to the army spokesman, it was a mine recently planted by members of the MFDC, the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance. "There have been a lot of them in recent months," said Colonel Abdou Ndiaye, reached by phone, "but so far we have managed to detect and defuse them," he said.

According to him, since a vast sweep operation in March 2022 and destruction of Indian hemp fields, there are no longer MFDC bases along the Gambian border, but IEDs would remain the last way to show their capacity to cause harm.

Last January, a soldier was killed in an exchange of fire and an army operation against Casamance rebels to destroy cannabis fields on the border with Gambia, one of the insurgents' sources of income along with timber trafficking, according to the Senegalese army.

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• Senegal
• Casamance