The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Saturday that a Swiss-American woman working for the Red Cross was killed when her vehicle apparently hit a land mine in Senegal’s troubled region of Casamance.

The statement, released just after the tragic event, indicated that “Jannette Fournier was killed and her colleagues wounded when the vehicle transporting them was struck either by a mine or by some form of unexploded substance.”

ICRC said in a statement the incident happened on Friday in the northwest main regional town of Ziguinchor.

Three other ICRC staff were travelling with Fournier, conducting a survey of civilians displaced by recent fighting between Senegalese troops and Casamance separatists when the incident occurred, ICRC said.

It would be recalled that rebels first took up arms against the government in Senegal in 1982, accusing it of neglecting the region.

The violence has since generally been low-level, but the area is heavily mined and a string of peace moves has failed to yield any lasting peace.

In another development, aid workers said last month nearly 4,000 people had fled to The Gambia to escape recent fighting in Casamance.