Ziguinchor — After 22 years of a now-fading conflict, the sentries that never sleep still kill and maim civilians in Casamance, the fertile southern area of Senegal enclaved between The Gambia and Guinea Bissau, and once considered the granary of the nation.
However, a separatist rebellion begun in 1982 left much of this lush, tropical area devastated by clashes between the Senegalese army and the armed branch of the Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC, or Movement of the Democratic Forces of Casamance).
Today, as the conflict dies down despite internal strife within the MFDC and so-far unfruitful peace talks with the Dakar government, civilian residents are still victims of landmines planted at the height of the conflict from 1996 to 2001.
Handicap International (HI), an NGO monitoring landmines in the region, puts the figure at 657 victims as of October 2004.
According to HI, 147 victims lost their lives. Among them, 23 were children below the age of 14.
"Civilians are being lured into a false sense of security by the scarce demining efforts undertaken by the army and that creates more accidents, even though the yearly figures are in steady decline," Philippe Martinez, programme manager for HI's operation in Casamance, said.
The Senegalese army has carried out infrequent demining operations, mainly focused on areas of strategic importance.
"What is needed is a humanitarian demining programme, that is, a complete depollution of mines in all areas and not just the ones of military significance, otherwise civilians will keep stepping on them" Martinez adds.
The Senegalese authorities say they cannot launch the comprehensive, humanitarian demining of the region unless a ceasefire is enforced.
"Otherwise, our demining teams will keep being shot at by the MFDC, as happened a couple of months ago near the town of Niaguis," said Mame Biram Sarr, governor of Ziguinchor, the main town in Casamance.
Amy Sagna, a 42-year-old mother of six and a member of the Association Sénégalaise des Victimes de Mines (ASVM, or Senegalese Association of Mine Victims) lives in the village of Darsalam, near Ziguinchor. On 17 July 1998, a date she recalls without hesitating, she stepped on a mine and survived, but lost a leg.
"I was going to the fields for mangoes, which I used to sell in Ziguinchor's market," she explained, sitting on her porch surrounded by her children. "I was walking on a track that borders the Senegalese army camp, when I had my accident."
She now runs a small shop from her father's house, selling a few meager onions and some cigarettes.
After the accident, she had to leave her home, as the village district she used to live in was infested with mines.
"Out of 10 districts in our village, six are now abandoned because of the mines," she said.
There are no signs warning of the presence of mines in the village. Villagers must rely on verbal information, which often comes after an accident.
Comprehensive demining efforts would be a daunting task in Casamance. The separatist MFDC planted mines without keeping track of their location and the Senegalese army denies using any landmines, especially since the government signed and ratified the comprehensive landmine banning treaty in 1998.
"Many victims are women because we work in the fields, and children, because they don't know what a mine looks like," Sagna told IRIN. "I myself saw the landmine before I stepped on it, but I didn't know what it was."
There have been five mine accidents in Darsalam so far, two of them instantly killing the victims.
Victims of landmine accidents are referred to the state-sponsored, regional hospital in Ziguinchor, where they undergo surgery and re-education lasting on average three months. However, the prostheses needed to recover some partial mobility are too expensive for most victims.
Felix Diandy is an orthopedist at the Ziguinchor regional hospital. In a country where annual GDP per capita is barely above US $600, "a prosthesis costs anything from $120 up to $150 for a femoral apparatus, used by victims amputated above the knee," he explains.
According to Diandy, the Senegalese state does not subsidize prosthesis limbs, and most of the cost must be covered by relief organizations. This can amount to a substantial sum in the case of amputee children, as they require a new device every six months in order to keep up with their growth.
"Most victims are subsistence farmers," he said. "If they were well-off, they would never have to go fetch a living in the fields where the mines are."
However, surviving the accident and coping with a severe disability is not the end of the ordeal for many victims.
Upon leaving the hospital to return to Boutoute, Elizabeth Nassalan - who lost both legs to a mine planted in her uncle's garden - discovered she was not welcome anymore in her husband's home.
"After the accident, my husband remarried and chased me and our eight children from his home, saying I was no use for any work," she said. She has had to place her three-year-old twins in an orphanage, to be able to provide for the remaining six.
Her husband, Désiré Namatan, was not available for comment.
Sagna confirms there is little assistance provided to victims by the community.
"In our culture, we are supposed to be able to fend for ourselves," she said. "There is no solidarity with mine victims in our village - I can only rely on my family."
Most mines were planted in the bush and in villages, but accidents have been recorded inside the main towns as well. Mamady Gassama, assistant secretary of the ASVM, stepped on a mine in the Ziguinchor city centre when he was 14, in 1998.
"After a night attack by the rebels on Ziguinchor, the population went to read posters they had placed in the hospital compound," he explained. "That's when I stepped on a mine. My friend and my younger brother were seriously injured, but they were saved."
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Gassama said he spoke for most of the Casamance population when he said they were not interested in independence, but only the end of the war.
"After school, I want to study law and stand for the rights of landmine victims, because many treaties have been signed by governments, but few are actually enforced," he continues.
Most observers figure both parties to the conflict used landmines. Abdoulaye Dhiédiou, who presented himself as the legitimate secretary of the fragmented MFDC and said he spoke for Atika, the armed branch of the MFDC, concurred.
"Landmines are sentries that never fall asleep and both sides used them," he said. "But we, the MFDC, only planted them around our cantonments."
Ibrahima Gassama runs a weekly radio programme in partnership with HI called "Living Upright". The programme carries sensitisation reports and testimonies from victims in the region's six vernacular languages, as well as French, the local lingua franca.
He explained that sensitisation was essential. "The victims themselves are now relaying the information, reaching villages and showing their prostheses to previously sceptical villagers," Gassama said.
However, even as the conflict dies down and claims of independence are watered down by the Senegalese government's development and reconstruction efforts, the menace remains.
"People think a halt in the fighting means peace, whereas landmines never rest, they remain alert forever," Gassama said.
