/ 11 February 1999

OAU TEAM TRAPPED IN COMORES

A DELEGATION of the Organisation of African Unity in the separatist Comoran island of Anjouan is “stuck” between two armed factions, officials in the Mauritian capital said on Thursday. “The delegation is apparently having problems right now, stuck between two armed factions who have been fighting on the island for several weeks,” an official said. Anjouan separatists, who unilaterally declared independence from the Indian Ocean republic in August 1997, have since split into supporters of former prime ministers Omar Said Chamasse and Abdou Mohammed Mindhi and militias defending self-styled president Abdallah Ibrahim. The trapped delegation includes diplomats from Mauritius, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritania, Tanzania and Kenya as well as OAU officials.