Armed Separatists Kidnap 79 Students And 3 Staff Members From School in Cameroon’s Restive Northwest
Armed men kidnapped 79 students and 3 staff members from a Presbyterian boarding school in a troubled English-speaking region of Cameroon, the governor said on Monday.
North West Region Gov. Deben Tchoffo (seen below) said that the students were abducted Sunday night and range in age from 11-17. They were taken along with school staff members that included a teacher, a driver and the principal from secondary school Nkwen in Bamenda, a village near the regional capital. The armed men took the boys and girls and tried to drive away with the school’s minibus. The driver pretended there was an issue with the vehicle so the men took off with the children on foot. Security guards that normally man the entrance to the school were nowhere to be found, sources said.
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“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.
One student, who witnessed the attack but was spared, described being woken up in the middle of the night by about a half dozen armed men who slapped and beat the children as they made them exit their dormitories.
“They knocked on the door and we opened it, even though we did not really know the people who were knocking,” the student told the Guardian. “Some of us were hesitating but others quickly opened [it]. When they came in, all of us went under our beds. They asked us to come outside. As we went outside, they started beating some of us, slapping them.
“They tried to bump into another dormitory but it didn’t open. They threatened the students to open the door or else they would be shot. All the other dorms heeded the threat.
“They brought us to the administrative block and brought in the principal. They selected some students and asked us to lie on the ground. We laid there till morning. They asked us that before 5pm, all of us should go back home. They threatened to return to campus and kill those they will meet still here.”
A video showing 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 North West and South West regions.
“We shall only release you after the struggle,” the men said to the boys in the video. “You will be going to school now here.” The video could not be independently verified, but parents said on social media that they recognized their children in the recording.
“I am very confused. I am all alone,” said one woman, a widow whose 16-year-old daughter was taken. “I went to the school and she was not on campus. I can’t even talk. I just want them to free my daughter. She is innocent.”
The leader of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, the Rev. Fonki Samuel Forba (seen below), told the BBC that he had spoken with the kidnappers. “They don’t want any ransom. All they want is for us to close the schools,” Forba said. “We hope and pray they release the kids and the teachers.”
A government official later said a massive search is now underway for the hostages involving the Cameroonian army. “Every man has been called in,” the official said, according to AFP news agency.
Sadly, this is not the first time students have been kidnapped in the area, known to be a stronghold of separatist fighters, but Sunday is by far the highest number abducted at one time. On October 19th, five students of the Atiela Bilingual High School were taken by gunpoint by unidentified men. Their whereabouts are still unknown.
The separatists have also set fire to no less than 100 schools and driven out students and teachers from buildings, taking them over as training grounds.
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 simply disobeying orders to keep schools closed.
“These appalling abductions show just how the general population is paying the highest price as violence escalates in the Anglophone region,” said Samira Daoud, Amnesty International deputy regional director for West and Central Africa (seen below). “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.”
Just 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.
An American missionary also died in the North West region near its capital, Bamenda, when he was shot in the head amid fighting between soldiers and separatists.
The turmoil in Cameroon comes after President Paul Biya (seen below) won a 7th term last month in an election the United States said was marked by irregularities. Biya, who has been in office since 1982, is set to be inaugurated on Tuesday. Opposition parties allege that the poll was rigged, but legal attempts to overturn the result have all failed. 85-year-old Biya has condemned “acts of violence” regardless of their sources.
The militias, who want to create Ambazonia, began emerging in 2017 after a security force crackdown on mass protests that was led by teachers and lawyers, over the government’s alleged failure to give enough recognition to the English legal and education systems in the North-West and South-West.
The government was accused of relying heavily on people trained in the French legal and educational tradition to work in key posts and generally marginalizing Cameroon’s English-speaking minority, who make up roughly 20% of the population.
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