Dakar – The Senegalese government said on Friday it had arrested members of a rebel group campaigning for the independence of the southern Casamance region, a claim refuted by a leading opposition figure as tensions heat up before an upcoming vote.
According to the government, the arrests took place during a demonstration in the capital Dakar on Wednesday that was staged by the opposition coalition Yewwi Askan Wi.
Several opposition leaders have been banned from contesting the July 31 legislative elections, prompting protesters to threaten to prevent the polls from taking place if Yewwi Askan Wi is barred.
“There were indeed rebels who were arrested during the latest demonstrations,” government spokesman Oumar Gueye said.
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“Those who seek to destabilise our country are going to get cold feet,” he added.
Gueye gave no details about those arrested, but social media reports identified them as members of the separatist Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) who had come to attend the protests.
Ousmane Sonko, mayor of Casamance’s main town Ziguinchor and a leading figure in Yewwi Askan Wi, accused the government of spreading “unfounded information”.
“These are lies,” he wrote in Wolof on his Facebook page, saying the government aimed “to demobilise the militants”.
“They are now talking about the MFDC after other lies,” he added.
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Casamance, Senegal’s southernmost region, is almost separated from the rest of the country by the tiny state of The Gambia. It has a distinct culture and language derived from its past as a former Portuguese colony.
The MFDC has led a low-intensity separatist campaign since 1982 that has claimed several thousand lives.
But the conflict was mostly dormant until Senegal launched a major offensive last year to drive out the rebels.
In a clash on January 24, four Senegalese soldiers were killed and seven were captured alive and taken across the border to The Gambia. The rebels released the hostages the following month.
In March, the army launched a new operation in which it claimed to have destroyed several rebel bases for the loss of one soldier and eight wounded.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Pixabay
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