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The attack took place yesterday, Saturday, in Kumba, in the southwestern region, where “at least 8 children were shot and killed with machete attacks, and another 12 were injured and taken to local hospitals,” according to a statement from the Coordination Office. of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations (OCHA) in Cameroon.
A source close to the police stated that around 11 am, a “group of 9 terrorist attackers” broke into the “Academia Internacional Madre Francisca” (Academia Bielégica Internacional Madre Francisca) and then opened fire on the students in the class. , between 9 and 12 years old.
Maurice Cametto, leader of the opposition, spoke of “absolute horror”. He said: “How many dead people must be killed before the political solution brings peace” to the Northwest and Southwest (English-speaking) regions?
For his part, the Cameroonian Prime Minister held an extraordinary meeting after the attack.
Clashes have been going on for almost three years between separatist groups in the two regions, which include the majority of the English-speaking minority, and some of them are considered marginalized by the French-speaking majority in the country.
“There are no words strong enough to express sadness or condemnation and my dismay at the brutal attack that targeted the children of a school in their classroom,” African Union President Moussa Faki wrote in a tweet.
“Atrocity”
For his part, Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health, Malash Manada, said: “I unreservedly condemn the barbaric acts committed today in Kumba, and the killing of learning children is a violation of the foundations of our nation.”
Ari Elvis Ntue, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group in Cameroon, said that “school boycotts were a strategy for separatists in recent years and around 700,000 young people were out of the education system due to the conflict.”
“The government and English-speaking civil society exerted great pressure on separatist groups to return their children to school, and schools that had been closed for years began to reopen,” added the analyst.
Schools were a target in the recent past, but they have never witnessed a massacre of this size. In mid-May, separatists shot and killed a teacher at Bamanda University (northwest) because he refused to stop teaching, Human Rights Watch reported.
Neither party has yet claimed responsibility for the attack on Kumba and authorities have not officially identified the attackers.
The battles in the English-speaking region of Cameroon, as well as the atrocities and slaughter of civilians at the hands of the two camps, according to various NGOs, resulted in the death of more than 3,000 people and the escape of more than 700,000.
Human Rights Watch reported in July that “security forces and armed separatists have repeatedly attacked hospitals and medical personnel” in recent months.
