More than thirty women were kidnapped last Saturday by separatists in the North West region of Cameroon, shaken by the conflict between the Anglophone secessionists and the army, the authorities reported.
(Keep reading: Nigeria: denounce kidnapping of more than 80 people in a village in the northeast of the country).
In a statement published by local media late on Tuesday, Mezam’s civil administrator, Simon Emile Mooh, said that the kidnapping occurred in the village of Kedjom Keku (Big Babanki), located in that territory close to the border with Nigeria.
“On May 20, 2023, at around 8:30 a.m. (07:30 GMT), more than thirty women were severely tortured and kidnapped by heavily armed terrorists in Kedjom-Keku,” the administrator said.
(You may be interested in: Nigeria: shipwreck leaves 15 children dead in a river in the state of Sokoto).
More than thirty women were severely tortured and kidnapped by heavily armed terrorists.
The event took place one day after organizing a “peaceful protest march” of elderly women to end “the atrocities and criminal activities of terrorists against the population of that town,” Mooh explained.
The administrator condemned “this gender violence and this ineffable barbarity against unarmed civilians” and assured that “diligent investigations have been opened to prosecute the perpetrators of this cruel act and present them before the judicial authorities.”
He also urged the population to remain “calm” while law enforcement restore peace and security in the village.
(Don’t stop reading: Bomb blast leaves at least 27 dead in central Nigeria.)
Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions – known by separatists as Ambazonia – have been in a crisis since 2016, when teachers and lawyers demonstrated and staged strikes to demand equal use of English in courts and schools and greater representation. in government.
In 2017, it became an armed conflict intensified by the refusal of the government of Cameroonian President Paul Biya, in power for more than forty years, to study the demands, although after the peace dialogue measures were applied, such as the release of more than 300 detained separatists.
Although English and French are co-official languages in Cameroon and coexist alongside 250 other native languages, 20 percent of the country’s population is Anglophone, a minority that has felt marginalized and assimilated by the Francophone central government for decades.
According to data from Canada, which assured last January that it had promoted a peace dialogue, something that the Cameroonian government denied, more than 6,000 people have died in this conflict and nearly 800,000 have left their homes for fear of violence.
EFE
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