‘We took our children and ran’: thousands displaced as Senegal’s 40-year-war crosses border

More than 6,ooo people have left their homes as renewed violence in the Casamance region spills into the Gambia

It was late morning when the bullets burst through the corrugated roof of Maimouna Kujabee's farmhouse. First, she hit the ground. Then she took off, running from her village in Ziguinchor, in Senegal's Casamance region, as fast as her children could manage.

Through fields and forest, with only the clothes on her back, Kujabee did not stop until she reached Bajagar, in the Gambia, about a mile north of the border. The sun was hot. I ran until my sandals were cut up," says Kujabee.