Dozens feared killed in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone region

Hours after a court in Cameroon slammed seven Anglophone activists, including their leader with 15-year jail terms, dozens have reportedly been feared killed in the restive English speaking region.

However, the exact circumstances surrounding their deaths were not immediately clear in the incident regarded as one of the deadliest since armed secessionists from the English-speaking minority launched an insurrection against President Paul Biya’s predominantly led Francophone central government.

Agbor Balla Nkongho, a local human rights lawyer and activist, told Reuters that at least 34 bodies were found on Friday in Menka. He declined to say who had killed them.

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Another local source who visited Menka on Saturday and asked not to be named said she saw a total of 29 bodies, including three outside a school, riddled with gunshot wounds. Some were women and others boys as young as 13, she said.

The bodies “are rotting already and reek,” she said.

The movement accuses Biya’s government of marginalising Cameroon’s English-speaking minority with the Anglophone secessionist movement also triggering counter protests by the country’s Francophone community.

 

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