Landmine kills 12 in Bissau minibus taxi-Red Cross

DAKAR, Mar 17 (Reuters) A minibus taxi hit a landmine near Guinea Bissau's border with Senegal, triggering an explosion that killed 12 people on board, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today.

The border area is heavily mined after years of unrest in both Guinea Bissau and Senegal's southern Casamance region, where separatist rebels have fought a 24-year insurgency.

The explosion happened on Thursday on the Guinea Bissau side of the border, near the town of Sao Domingos, Henry Fournier, regional representative for the ICRC told Reuters in Senegal's capital Dakar.

A day earlier clashes between two rival factions of the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) in the same area killed several civilians, according to Guinea Bissau's government.

Soldiers from Guinea Bissau's army were also involved in the fighting and two died, the tiny former Portuguese colony's Defence Minister Helder Proenca told parliament yesterday.

Armed dissidents from both countries have in the past moved backwards and forwards over the border area, where local tribal and political loyalties are often more influential than modern national borders originally imposed by European colonists.

REUTERS VJ RAI0128