No fewer than three teachers, including the headmaster and a deputy head teacher were kidnapped from a Cameroonian high school by armed men in one of two English-speaking regions troubled by an armed conflict between separatists and soldiers.
Speaking to newsmen yesterday, the secretary general of the National Union of Secondary Teachers (Snaes), Roger Kafo said; ‘An armed group burst into the Weh bilingual high school on Tuesday and kidnapped five people’.
Africa Today News, New York reports that armed separatists regularly attack schools which they accuse of teaching in French, and kill civil servants, including teachers, whom they accuse of ‘collaborating’ with the central government in Yaounde.
Reports have it that students have been abducted and often later released.
Read Also: 11 killed as Cameroonian ‘soldiers’ attack Taraba Community
‘At the moment we don’t have any news of the hostages and none has been freed,’ Kafo added.
The hostages were the principal, the deputy head and three teachers.
The northwest and southwest regions have been rocked by violence since 2017 when anglophone militants declared independence from the majority French-speaking country.
Yaounde responded with a crackdown.
Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives and forced over 700,000 to flee their homes.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that this is coming less than two weeks after an opposition Senator was shot dead in western Cameroon where a bloody insurgency is being waged by anglophone separatists against the Cameroonian State.
The lawmaker by name, Henry Kemende ‘was killed (overnight) by unidentified armed assailants’, a local communications ministry official confirmed to newsmen on the condition of anonymity.
He had been a lawyer and lawmaker for the Social Democratic Front (SDF), one of Cameroon’s main opposition parties.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK