Gunmen killed a leading figure of a Senegalese separatist movement on Sunday while he was attending a traditional ceremony, a military spokesman said. Abdou Elinkine Diatta, spokesman of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), was attending an enthronement ceremony of a traditional king when the assailants arrived on a motorcycle. "They opened fire and he was killed," Colonel Abdou Ndiaye told AFP.

Ndiaye said another person died of his wounds on his way to hospital and two others were hurt in the attack at Mlomp, outside the Casamance capital Ziguinchor in southern Senegal. He said there was no indication who carried out the attack. Diatta, though not known to hold any operational or military role, was a familiar face in the separatist movement, notably as its spokesman.

The group, riven by internal factions, has for almost four decades waged a low-level conflict against the Dakar government in the Casamance region, which is virtually separated from the rest of Senegal by the Gambia, which juts into the former French colony from the Atlantic Ocean.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019