Schools are “weapons of war” in a separatist insurgency in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions, but the massacre of eight young children in class last week brought a new level of horror.
Since violence erupted in 2017, the kidnapping of youngsters, attacks on teachers and the destruction of schools have been frequent in the western part of the mainly French-speaking country.
Secessionist groups kill civilians, while the army is known for brutal attacks on non-combatants in its drive to crush forces seeking a breakaway state.
Photo: Reuters
On Saturday last week, gunmen on motorbikes rode up to a bilingual school in the town of Kumba and opened fire on girls and boys aged 12 to 14.
At least eight children perished, and about a dozen more were wounded and taken to hospital, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
“The school is used as a weapon of war in this conflict,” Human Rights Watch central Africa researcher Ilaria Allegrozzi said. “The separatists don’t want the children to be in the schools, institutions which they equate with central authority.”
“Most of the teachers appointed to the Anglophone regions are Francophone,” Allegrozzi added, in a country where French is used by a majority.
The English-speaking regions are a postcolonial heritage.
Syllabuses for history and civic education lessons are seen as biased instruments of government policy by separatists, who have in recent years introduced a strategy of school boycotts.
In November last year, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported that about 855,000 children were not attending school in the Anglophone regions.
About 90 percent of state-run primary schools, totaling more than 4,100 establishments, and 77 percent of the state-run secondary schools were not functioning or completely closed down, UNICEF said.
The start of the new school year on Oct. 5 was markedly different.
“The government and Anglophone civil society put a lot of pressure on the separatist groups to let their children go back to school, and schools that had been closed for years began to reopen,” International Crisis Group senior researcher Arrey Elvis Ntui said.
“After three years of almost total school shortages, people began to believe again in the institution. The classrooms were packed,” said Jacques Ebwea, a political analyst based in Buea, the main town of the Anglophone Southwest region.
“It was a success. Unfortunately, Saturday’s attack will dampen the enthusiasm of many people,” he added.
On Tuesday morning, false rumors of new attacks spread panic at schools in Limbe and Buea in the Southwest region, where frightened pupils tried to flee the premises while their scared parents were rushing to fetch them.
“I don’t know if I’m going to send my child back to school,” said Desire, a resident of Kumba. “If the situation deteriorates any further, I will send him elsewhere, to Douala or Bafoussam.”
Both towns are on Francophone territory and Douala, a big city and port, is the economic capital of the country.
“There is general panic in the area,” said Semma Valentine, a teacher in Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest region. “All parties concerned are to blame.”
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