Since January 2025, the Emergency Program for the Modernization of Border Axes and Territories (PUMA) has been at the forefront of a silent but profound transformation in the regions of Ziguinchor, Kolda and Sédhiou, by operationalizing the Diomaye Plan for Casamance, launched by the President of the Republic, His Excellency Mr. Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye.

Through the Casamance Returnees Support Project (PADC), the Senegalese state, via the PUMA program, is no longer simply encouraging return: it is creating the conditions for a sustainable, dignified, and safe return.

Project to Support Returning Displaced Persons (PADC) launched by PUMA in January 2025

The Casamance conflict emptied entire villages. Thousands of families fled, finding refuge elsewhere in Senegal or in neighboring countries. As security gradually improved, many made the courageous choice to return. But returning does not automatically mean starting over.

Upon arrival, returning displaced people face a harsh reality: destroyed homes, abandoned fields, and nonexistent social services. It is this humanitarian emergency that PUMA has decided to confront head-on.

In 2025, 328 returning displaced households received direct resettlement support in the Ziguinchor, Sédhiou, and Kolda regions. Hundreds of tons of cement, tens of thousands of sheets of corrugated iron, doors, slats, nails, and 328 family latrines were distributed to enable the construction of permanent, decent, and sanitary housing. Behind these figures are countless families finally leaving makeshift shelters to rediscover the privacy and security of a real home.

Summary of building materials given to returning displaced households

Dimbaya, a village bordering Gambia, showcases the achievements of PUMA

Dimbaya, a border village long isolated and oriented towards neighboring Gambia, was reclaimed thanks to the PUMA program. In direct response to a presidential directive, PUMA invested over 350 million FCFA in a comprehensive modernization package: an access road, a modern borehole, a school with a perimeter wall and water point, a 2-hectare market garden area, a VSAT antenna, and an equipped computer room.

The availability of internet access in Dimbaya significantly reduces its isolation by opening it up to the rest of the world. This connectivity allows students, teachers, and administrative staff to conduct research and access the same amenities as those working in urban centers.

Dimbaya is no longer a forgotten village. It is becoming an anchor of national sovereignty, a symbol of the return of the State to where it had long been absent.

PUMA organized a mobile court hearing in Dimbaya for more than 1000 people to allow them to obtain birth certificates.

Health, education, water: key sectors for rebuilding daily life

PUMA has chosen an integrated approach. Because a house without a school, without a health post and without drinking water is only a temporary shelter.

In the three regions of Casamance, six modern primary schools have been built thanks to the PUMA program: in Dimbaya, Niaféna, Kona, Saré Diamboulou, Bantancountou, and Bindaba. These schools allow children to remain in their villages, reconnect with learning, and break free from the educational disruptions that often accompanied exile.

In the same vein, four health posts have been built or are under construction in Diankoye Banga, Katack Boudouck, Saré Lao, and Baning Diéga. To definitively break the healthcare isolation, PUMA also delivered nine fully equipped ambulances and two ambulance boats, a vital response in a region where distances and waterways complicate access to care.

Access to drinking water, a fundamental condition of human dignity, has not been forgotten. Six (06) boreholes, water towers, 70 km of multi-village water supply networks and livestock watering troughs, etc., built in Ziguinchor, Kolda and Sédhiou are transforming the daily lives of communities that were once dependent on traditional wells.

Reconnecting certain localities dependent on services from neighboring countries in Senegal

In Casamance, isolation is also geographical. Some villages remain cut off from the world for several months each year. The PUMA project has addressed this geographical barrier of isolation through the construction of access roads, primarily in Dimbaya, located in the Kataba 1 commune, 104 km from Ziguinchor.

The 2.5 km Dimbaya–Touba Tranquille road has become a symbol. It now connects a border village long under foreign influence to Touba Tranquille, the nearest Senegalese village. Thanks to this road, the inhabitants of Dimbaya, who previously sought medical treatment in The Gambia, can now return to their country, Senegal, to receive care at a health post built and equipped by the PUMA program.

Other key sections, totaling 73 kilometers of tracks, are underway or planned in Ziguinchor and Sédhiou to connect return areas to markets, schools, health posts and administrative services.

At the same time, the area is also being opened up digitally. VSAT antennas have been installed in Diouloulou,

Kataba 1, Sindian, Tanaaf, Simbandi Brassou or Fafacourou. The internet and the telephone network are arriving where they have never existed before, paving the way for digital administration, connected education and better border surveillance.

Rebuilding the local economy to curb poverty

Returning to one's land also means finding the means to live sustainably. PUMA has focused on rebuilding livelihoods, notably through the development of 11 modern 2-hectare market garden areas, equipped with solar boreholes, irrigation systems and storage facilities in the three regions of Casamance.

From Dimbaya to Djirack, from Bantancountou to Medina Alpha Sadou, these market gardening areas are becoming hubs of food security and income, particularly for women and young people.

Equipment to lighten the workload, mills and hullers reinforce this dynamic of women's economic empowerment.

Strengthening border security through the construction and equipping of security infrastructure

The PUMA program strengthens border security through the construction and equipping of gendarmerie brigades and border police posts. Following the completion (construction and equipping) of the Niaguiss Gendarmerie Brigade, PUMA has begun construction of the Mpack Border Police Post in the Boutoupa Camaracounda Commune.

An investment for consolidating peace, territorial integrity, national sovereignty and strengthening the sense of national belonging

Between January 2025 and December 2025, PUMA mobilized and invested more than 03 billion FCFA in Casamance, with tangible impacts: improved living conditions, access to social, economic and infrastructure and facilities, reversal of cross-border flows towards Senegalese infrastructure, strengthening of the sense of national belonging.

And the ambition doesn't stop there. For 2026, PUMA wants to invest 12 billion CFA francs to amplify this dynamic of social and economic construction with a view to sustainable development in Casamance: new schools, health posts, boreholes, roads, economic equipment, security infrastructure and support for 1,000 new displaced households returning.

Casamance is rising again, stone by stone.

Through the Casamance Returning Displaced Persons Support Project, which operationalizes the Diomaye Plan for Casamance, PUMA demonstrates that peace is built through concrete action, close ties with the population, and territorial justice. In Casamance, return is no longer just a hope. It is becoming a structured, planned, and sustainable reality.

And beyond infrastructure, it is a promise kept: that of a united, sovereign and equitable Senegal, where no territory is left behind.