Credit: Daan Bawuens/IPS

At this time of the year, women farmers in the Casamance region should be tending vegetable gardens spread out alongside the many tributaries of Senegal River.

By Ebrima Sillah

At this time of the year, women farmers in the Casamance region should be tending vegetable gardens spread out alongside the many tributaries of Senegal River. But the fields lie fallow as a peace deal falters.

A 2004 peace deal allowed the population of Casamance to return home after 15 years in refugee camps in Guinea Bissau, but in 2008 fresh fighting between government forces and rebels of the Movement for the Democratic Forces of Casamance (known by its French acronym, MFDC) put people on the move again. Many farms have been mined – mainly by rebels.

“This conflict has turned everybody into perpetual beggars,” says Marcie Deidhiou, who lived in a refugee camp in neighbouring Guinea Bissau for 15 years, before returning to Casamance. “Unlike other armed conflicts on the continent that receive much attention and priority, the Casamance conflict is always described as low key. We who are living through it can tell you that some very serious abuses are going on here.”

Abdoulaye Sambou, Casamance correspondent for popular Senegalese radio station RFM, says “it is common to hear of entire settlements burned to ground, men forced to fight for the rebels, women raped and properties looted.” Sambou says women now head a majority of households because the men have fled government arrest under insurgency or are fighting against the government.

The women now want to play a political role. “Women are likely to succeed in convincing the rebels to lay down their arms and to press government to bring development in the region,” says Aram Badjan, head of the women’s organisation Kanbeng-Kafo. “Because the people fighting in the bush are our sons and close relatives, they will likely listen to us.” So far, nobody is.