Travelers, Tourists Attacked in Southern Senegal

A group of bandits believed to be members of a rebel group has ambushed cars and robbed passengers on a main road in Southern Senegal. Brent Latham reports from our West Africa bureau in Dakar a Senegalese soldier was killed during the incident. Witnesses say about 30 bandits set up the roadblock late Tuesday on the main highway 20 kilometers north of Ziguinchor, the capital of the Casamance region. They stopped about 12 vehicles by pushing a large tree over the road. The bandits executed a Senegalese soldier they identified among passengers of one of the stopped vehicles, says Alpha Jallow, a reporter in Ziguinchor. "When they stopped the vehicles, they asked all of them to get out of the vehicles, and they were lined up," said Jallow. "The rebels were screening them to know their real identities. They found out that among... [read full story]