The missing soldiers are: Sergeant Abou Bâ, Sergeant Fulgence Antoine Manga, Chief Corporal Niane Diatta, Chief Corporal Pape Souaka Diouf, private Gana Sène, private Omar Thioye, private Atap Diémé and private Jacob Vincent Mendy.
A violent clash pitted soldiers from the West African Mission in The Gambia (ECOMIG) against suspected Casamance rebels during an operation against timber trafficking.
What really happened? According to cross-checks from the newspaper Le Quotidien, it seems that these Senegalese elements of Ecomig intercepted a truck full of wood, coming from Senegal, near Kambagol.
The occupants of the truck took the time to escape, after sabotaging the vehicle, to immobilise it.
The Army section, busy seeing how to transport the truck, was targeted by assailants armed with AK 47s and RPG7s.
They first acted in groups, then in sections, before being a whole company, according to the Senegalese soldiers.
It appears that it was a long-planned attack during which the enemy also benefited from the complicity, more or less passive, of the populations of the surrounding villages.
The general impression is that the Senegalese contingent would have fallen into a trap.
