When the ferry was relaunched on 10 September, the two leaders of the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces, the MFDC, were in Ziguinchor harbour to greet it.
The BBC's Mame Less Camara, in Dakar, says that the ferry probably resumed service before it had undergone sufficient checks because the Senegalese Government wanted to show goodwill towards the separatist movement of Casamance, which whom it was supposed to resume talks.
The supply of arms to the Senegalese rebels was also in part an historical quid pro quo for the unofficial support the people of Casamance gave in the 1960s and 1970s to Bissau-Guinean rebels in their successful fight against the Portuguese colonial regime in Bissau.