By Diadie Ba DAKAR, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Senegalese troops clashed on Thursday with southern separatist rebels opposed to de-mining operations backed by Moroccan soldiers, the army said. Heavy artillery bombardments could be heard from Ziguinchor, capital of the southern Casamance region, residents said. "We were woken up this morning by sound of bombardments," a resident in the town told Reuters by telephone. Morocco sent 100 soldiers to Casamance in December at the request of the Senegalese government to help clear mines from a region that has seen almost 25 years of low-level rebellion by Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) separatists. But rebel fighters who reject a 2004 peace deal with the central government have demanded the Moroccans leave, fearing the removal of minefields in the area could leave them open to attack by government forces. The army said Thursday's fighting happened near the village of Baraca Bounaou, close to the border with Guinea-Bissau in the south of the lush province, once the bread basket of Senegal. "We fought with armed men who don't want us to carry out our de-mining duty ... Nobody was hurt on our side," said army spokesman Antoine Wardini. Wardini said there had been casualties on the rebel side, but he could not say how many or how serious. There was no immediate comment from the rebel side. Sandwiched between Guinea-Bissau and the former British colony of Gambia, which separates it from the rest of Senegal, Casamance residents have long complained of being marginalised by the former French colony's central government in Dakar. The 2004 peace deal was meant to end years of on-off violence that began in 1982 and peaked in the 1990s. But members of the armed wing of the MFDC, in particular a faction led by rebel commander Salif Sadio, rejected the deal and have fought successive battles in recent months against the Senegal and Guinea-Bissau armies as well as rival MFDC factions. Roman Catholic priest Father Augustin Diamacoune Senghor, the long-serving leader of the MFDC who signed the 2004 accord, died at the weekend in a Paris hospital aged 78.
