3 teachers, headmaster and deputy head kidnapped from school in Cameroon

Three teachers, the headmaster and a deputy head were kidnapped from a Cameroonian high school by armed men in one of two English-speaking regions plagued by an armed conflict between separatists and soldiers, a teachers’ union told AFP on Friday.

“An armed group burst into the Weh bilingual high school on Tuesday and kidnapped five people,” said Roger Kafo, secretary-general of the National Union of Secondary Teachers (Snaes).

Armed separatists regularly attack schools that they accuse of teaching in French, and kill civil servants, including teachers, whom they accuse of “collaborating” with the central government in Yaounde.

Students have been abducted and later released.

“At the moment we don’t have any news of the hostages and none has been freed,” Kafo added.

The hostages were the principal, the deputy head and three teachers.

The northwest and southwest regions have been rocked by violence since 2017 when anglophone militants declared independence from the majority French-speaking country.

Yaounde responded with a crackdown.

Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives and forced over 700,000 to flee their homes. (AFP)