{{Three Senegalese women who work for a South African organization that cleared land mines and were kidnapped by separatist rebels in Senegal this month were handed over to authorities in neighbouring Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday.}}<\/p>\n
Twelve employees of demining firm Mechem were kidnapped by a faction of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance, which has waged a 31-year struggle for independence in Senegal’s southern border with Guinea-Bissau.<\/p>\n
A witness said the women were handed over to the government in Bissau by Mao Ku Mao, a local organization that had secured their release.<\/p>\n
“We convinced the rebels that freeing the hostages would be a sign that they want peace and are ready to move forward in talks with the Senegalese authorities,” said Bigna Na Fantchamna, Mao Ku Mao’s coordinator.<\/p>\n
Nine other male employees are still being held.<\/p>\n
The Casamance conflict is largely dormant, but there are sporadic flare-ups between rebels and Senegal’s army and banditry and drug trafficking are common in the isolated region, which was once a major tourist destination.<\/p>\n
Mediators are seeking to kick-start new talks between the two sides, but the rebels warned in March against demining in the region.<\/p>\n
Senegal has an otherwise enviable reputation for stability in a region that has been crippled by wars and coups.<\/p>\n
{reuters}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Three Senegalese women who work for a South African organization that cleared land mines and were kidnapped by separatist rebels in Senegal this month were handed over to authorities in neighbouring Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday.}} Twelve employees of demining firm Mechem were kidnapped by a faction of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance, which has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8125"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8125"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}