Attackers slice ears off 17 people in Senegal wrote:DAKAR (Reuters) - Unidentified attackers sliced the left ears off 17 people in Senegal's restive southern province of Casamance, a region long plagued by separatist rebel violence, police in the West African country said on Thursday.

The victims were among a group picking cashew nuts next to the village of Tampe, on the border with Guinea-Bissau, when they were cornered by men armed with knives on Wednesday, paramilitary police spokesman Daouda Diop said.

"All 17 people got their left ears sliced off," Diop told Reuters. "We rushed to the place where it happened but we did not find the attackers," he said.

The attackers' motives were unclear and the rebel Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) denied involvement.

Senegal is one of the most stable countries in West Africa but its southern Casamance region -- once a tourist hotspot and the nation's breadbasket -- has been plagued by low-level rebel activity for more than two decades.

The MFDC has been fighting since 1982 for greater autonomy for the mainly Christian region, which they say has been neglected by the Muslim-led government in Dakar.

But an attack like Wednesday's is unprecedented.

"The MFDC and its fighting branch deny all responsibility and condemn these barbarous acts," one of the group's leaders, Antoine Diamacoune, told private Senegalese radio station RFM.

"Our interest is to maintain calm until we can sit down with the government of Senegal and bring definitive peace to Casamance. We do not want civilians to be targeted," he said.

A number of peace accords have been signed over the years but have failed to bring a definitive end to the revolt in Casamance, which is cut off from the rest of the country by the tiny former British enclave of Gambia.

A public bus ran over a landmine in the region last week, killing one person and wounding 20 others, but in recent years the level of violence has generally subsided.