Dozens Of Separatists Killed In Cameroon

Cameroon soldiers have killed at least 30 separatists in two days of intense fighting in the turbulent English-speaking region, a military spokesman has said.

The military also freed people held by separatists during its two-day operation in the Mayo Binka area near Nkambe, spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck told the Associated Press news agency on Wednesday.

In a separate incident, the mayor of Nwa, a local council in the same region, was killed by suspected separatists, Emmanuel Bunyui, mayor of the nearby town of Ndu, told the Associated Press.
“When we hoist the Cameroon flag in the council premises, we are targeted by the armed men who insist that we should instead display their blue and white flag,” Bunyui said.

Many mayors in English-speaking regions have been targeted by armed separatists, who in 2016 began demanding an independent English-speaking state, which they call Ambazonia.

Recently, 79 students and three staff were kidnapped from a school by suspected separatists and later released.

Anglophones account for about one-fifth of Cameroon’s 25 million population.

Dozens Of Separatists Killed In Cameroon

The conflict has killed more than 400 people since last year and has emerged as President Paul Biya’s greatest security problem in his nearly four decades of rule. The two sides often provide conflicting accounts of the fighting, but both have reported heavier casualties in recent weeks.