Hundreds Flee Cameroon's Anglophone Areas Ahead Of Vote

Cameroonian authorities on Saturday banned the “massive exodus” from the country’s restive Anglophone regions, where violence has mounted ahead of next month’s presidential election.

A humanitarian source in Buea, the capital of the South West Region, told AFP that “hundreds of families are in the process of fleeing for ‘safer’ regions,” adding, “There is an atmosphere of fear.”

Hundreds Flee Cameroon's Anglophone Areas Ahead Of Vote

South West Governor of Bernard Okalia Bilai on Saturday was quoted as saying by the national television and radio network that “journeys were authorised but relocations and a massive exodus are forbidden”.
The governor on Saturday visited a busy bus terminus in Buea, where people have been leaving en masse – often with mattresses and beds – for the southern commercial capital of Douala or cities and towns in central Cameroon.