(MENAFN - The Peninsula) QNA

Dakar:Gunmen killed at least 13 people and injured seven others in Senegal's southern Casamance region.

The victims were gathering firewood in the forest, the military said. It was the worst attack in years in the West African nation's restive southern region, where a separatist insurgency has dragged on for more than three decades.

While no immediate claim of responsibility for the slayings was made, suspicion fell on the separatist group founded in 1982 known as the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance.

Senegalese President Macky Sall, on the occasion of the new year, appealed to the rebels in Casamance, calling on them to continue negotiations in order to reach a "lasting peace".

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