Cameroon
Cameroon Separatists Kill Seven, Including Police
Succession agitation by the English-speaking minority in Cameroon has led to the death of seven people overnight as presumed separatists raided a police station in a restive English-speaking region of the country.
A policeman died and six attackers were killed. The agitators targeted a police station in Mamfe, a city in the Southwest region, according to a security official who was speaking by phone from Douala.
Meanwhile, Nigeria, a neighbouring country to Cameroon has condemned continued succession agitations by Anglo-phone region of Cameroon, saying it did not support that.
“A policeman was killed and seven others wounded. Among the attackers, six people were shot dead” when the police returned fire, he said.
He said the gunmen had tried to flee in a police pickup but the vehicle was stopped at a security checkpoint.
The toll was confirmed by another security source, and witnesses reported hearing “intense gunfire” in Mamfe, one of the epicentres of the anglo-phone crisis.
The Guardian reported that the attack took place just hours before Cameroon’s defence minister went to Buea, the main city in the English-speaking southwest, to oversee a memorial ceremony for two policemen and four soldiers killed by suspected separatists in the Mamfe area last month.
“Over the past year, there has been mounting tension in Cameroon’s Southwest and Northwest regions — home to anglophones who account for about a fifth of the West African nation’s population of 22 million.
English-speakers complain they have suffered decades of economic inequality and social injustice at the hands of the French-speaking majority, especially in education and the judiciary.
But calls for greater autonomy have been rejected by President Paul Biya whose government has led a crackdown on the separatist drive, imposing night-time curfews, restrictions on movement, raids and body searches”, said the report.
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