Armed separatists kidnapped at least 79 students and three staff members from a Presbyterian school in a troubled English-speaking region of Cameroon, the governor said on Monday.
The students abducted on Sunday night were ages 11 to 17, and they were taken from Nkwen, a village near the regional capital, Bamenda, along with school staff that included the principal, North West Region Governor Deben Tchoffo said.
“It is rather unfortunate that this is happening, that 79 of our children and three of their staff can be picked up by terrorists,” Tchoffo said. “We have asked our military to do everything and bring back the kids alive.”
Photo: Reuters
A video purporting to show the kidnapped students was posted on social media from a group of men who call themselves “Amba boys,” a reference to the state of Ambazonia that armed separatists want to establish in Cameroon’s Anglophone northwest and southwest regions.
In the video, men who identified themselves as the kidnappers forced several boys to give their names and those of their parents.
The boys also said that they were taken late on Sunday by the armed men and did not know where they were being held.
The men in the video said that they would only release the students once the goal of creating a new state was achieved.
“We shall only release you after the struggle. You will be going to school now here,” the men said.
The video could not be independently verified, but parents said on social media that they recognized their children in the recording.
Fighting between the military and separatists increased after the government clamped down on peaceful demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they said were their marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.
Hundreds have been killed in the past year.
The separatists have vowed to destabilize the regions as part of the strategy for creating a breakaway state. They have attacked civilians who do not support their cause, including teachers who were killed for disobeying orders to keep schools closed.
There have been kidnappings at other schools, but the group taken on Sunday was the largest number abducted at one time in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions.
The separatists also have set fire to at least 100 schools and driven out students and teachers from buildings taken over as training grounds.
“These appalling abductions show just how the general population is paying the highest price as violence escalates in the Anglophone region,” Amnesty International deputy regional director for West and Central Africa Samira Daoud said. “The abduction of schoolchildren and teachers can never be justified.”
Amnesty International expressed solidarity with the students’ families and demanded “that the Cameroon authorities do everything in their power to ensure all the pupils and school staff are freed unharmed.”
Last week, separatist militants attacked workers on a state-run rubber plantation in southwestern Cameroon, allegedly chopping off their fingers because the men defied an order to stay away from the farms.
A US missionary also died in the northwest region near its capital, Bamenda, when he was shot in the head amid fighting between separatists and soldiers.
The turmoil comes after Cameroonian President Paul Biya won a seventh term last month in an election that the US said was marked by irregularities.
Biya, who has been in office since 1982, is scheduled to be inaugurated today.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not