Attackers kill police officer, kidnap teachers in Cameroon’s northwest

Security forces in Cameroon are searching for attackers who killed a police officer and kidnapped five teachers during a raid on a teacher training centre in the country’s Northwest Region, according to the governor.

Adolphe Lele Lafrique, the regional governor, told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that a group of armed individuals “infiltrated” a teacher training centre in the town of Wum, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Bamenda city, on Tuesday morning.

A police officer on the scene tried to intervene and stop the attackers. “The armed individuals unleashed a hail of bullets on him, killing him instantly, and took five teachers with them to an unknown location,” Lafrique said.

The Northwest Region is one of two English-speaking regions in Cameroon where separatist groups have been fighting government forces for about 10 years.

According to local reports, separatist leaders in Northwest and Southwest Regions announced a lockdown aiming to disrupt the school year.

Tensions over French speakers’ grip on education

In late 2016, the government violently put down protests in the anglophone regions.

Teachers and lawyers were objecting to the francophone authorities’ growing grip on the education and legal systems of the two English-speaking regions, where 20 percent of Cameroon’s population lives.

After the crackdown, a conflict broke out in 2017 between separatists and the government in Yaounde. Civilians fell victim to extortion, kidnappings for ransom, and violence.

At least 6,000 have died since 2016, according to the United Nations.

More than 330,000 people were internally displaced in Cameroon last year, and about 100,000 others fled to neighbouring Nigeria.