FRIDAY, 3.30PM
SEPARATISTS on the Comoro island of Anjouan have put up such fierce resistance to government troops that the OAU has urged the government to withdraw.
OAU special envoy Pierre Uere has urged the government to pull out its 300 troops after at least 30 were killed in an aborted invasion attempt that began on Wednesday. “I believe that President Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim must have been influenced by hardliners and allowed himself to be drawn into this adventure which has taken a turn for the worse today,” Yere said. “I think that the word ‘debacle’ would suit the situation.”
Gendarmes and paramilitary police on Anjouan have not only refused to fight, but have rallied to the separatist cause. Military officers returned to base on Thursday to raise more troops, but met resistance, with troops refusing to go. And some of the soldiers sent to Anjouan are also reported to have either defected, or to be refusing to fight.
Meanwhile, civilians are reported to have been killed in the crossfire, including at least five children who died when a rocket destroyed a school. At least 30 government troops are reported killed, and five wounded soldiers were flown back to the capital on Thursday.
The island’s separatist movement declared UDI on August 3, after a three month dispute with the Grand Comore government, which the islanders believe has ingored their problems. The islanders want to return to French colonial rule.
FRIDAY, 10.30AM
AT least 30 Comoran government soldiers have been killed in the operation to put down the separatist uprising on the island of Anjouan, a military source said.
“It’s a catastrophe,” a military source said in the capital Moroni on Grande Comore island in the Indian Ocean. The source, who asked not to be identified, gave no details about the number of civilian casualties. He added that fires had broken out around Anjouan’s main city Mutsamudu and that some 20 soldiers had seized a civilian plane and fled with it to Moroni. The plane had apparently been requisitioned to transport medical equipment to Anjouan. It was to bring back to Moroni wounded soldiers and members of a UN mission which had been sent to Anjouan before the military operation began on Wednesday.
An aide to Comoran President Mohamad Taki Abdoulkarim said in Nairobi: “There were no deaths, no war, no violence. The soldiers are in the process of restoring order.”