{"id":47514,"date":"2022-01-26T08:23:51","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T08:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=47514"},"modified":"2022-01-26T08:23:51","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T08:23:51","slug":"two-senegalese-soldiers-killed-nine-missing-in-the-gambia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=47514","title":{"rendered":"Two Senegalese soldiers killed, nine \u2018missing\u2019 in The Gambia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"article__subhead css-1wt8oh6\"><em>The soldiers, members of a regional peacekeeping force, are \u2018probably being held hostage\u2019 by rebels from Senegal\u2019s Casamance region, the army says.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"65\">\n<p>The Senegalese army says nine of its soldiers serving in a multinational peacekeeping force in The Gambia have gone \u201cmissing\u201d and likely taken hostage by rebels from Senegal\u2019s southern Casamance region following a clash.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement on Tuesday came a day after the army said two soldiers were killed in the same battle with fighters believed to belong to the Movement of Democratic Forces of the Casamance (MFDC).<\/p>\n<p>One rebel was also killed and three captured by Senegalese forces in the fighting on Monday, an army statement said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe nine missing soldiers are probably held hostage by the MFDC. Operations are ongoing to find them and secure the zone,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n<p>The soldiers were monitoring timber trafficking as part of ECOMIG, a peacekeeping mission from the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc.<\/p>\n<p>The MFDC was formed in 1982 to fight for independence for Casamance.<\/p>\n<p>The movement has been largely dormant since a ceasefire in 2014 but has been blamed by the Senegalese government for occasional attacks since then and continues to finance itself through timber trafficking between Senegal and The Gambia, a tiny strip of territory that is bordered on three sides by Senegal.<\/p>\n<p>ECOMIG, made up mainly of Senegalese soldiers, was deployed to The Gambia in January 2017 after former longtime ruler Yahya Jammeh refused to cede power after losing a presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Its mission has continued at President Adama Barrow\u2019s request despite Jammeh\u2019s departure into exile.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The soldiers, members of a regional peacekeeping force, are \u2018probably being held hostage\u2019 by rebels from Senegal\u2019s Casamance region, the army says.The Senegalese army says nine of its soldiers serving in a multinational peacekeeping force in The Gambia have gone \u201cmissing\u201d and likely taken hostage by rebels from Senegal\u2019s southern Casamance region following a clash.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}