MONDAY, 1.30PM
The leader of the Anjouan separatists in the Comoros announced that he will hold a “cabinet” meeting today to decide what to do next. Local businessman Ahmed “Charlie” Charikane held a candle-light press conference in a local hotel and said his first priority would be to re-establish phone links to the outside world and electricity.
He also formally called on Paris for help. “France should come here to re-establish order,” he told journalists, “because we have been the victims of aggression.”
A representative of the French group Pharmaciens sans Frontieres (Pharmacists without Borders) reports that 40 government soldiers were killed in fighting last week, 12 civilians were killed and 98 government soldiers were taken prisoner. No-one has reported any sign of French mercenaries, who were rumoured at one point to have sided with the separatists.
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.”
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