A prominent Cameroonian opposition figure and a soldier have been murdered in two separate attacks in Cameroon’s restive anglophone regions.
This comes at the time when Cameroon hosts the Africa Cup of Nations 2021 and raise concerns about the state of security.
The senator for the Social Democratic Front party, Henry Kemende, was shot dead in Bamenda city in the north-west region. His party laid blame to separatist fighters for the attack and said gunmen forced him from his car and shot him in the chest.
His body was found recovered with his chest riddled with bullets. “We recovered his body, his chest riddled with bullets,” Joshua Osih, the vice president of the SDF, confirmed to AFP.
He also disclosed that the vehicle that the Mr. Kamende was travelling in before he was killed happened to ‘disappear’.
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Separatist rebels in Buea in the neighbouring South-West regions killed a soldier with an improvised explosive device during an attack in which rebels exchanged gunfire with the army, Cho Ayaba, the head of the rebel Ambazonia Defence Forces, told Reuters.
The Guardian wrote that no group had claimed responsibility for Henry Kamende’s death. Assassinations by armed separatists by people working with Cameroonian authorities are common in anglophone regions.
Cameroon has been racked by violence since October 2017, when militants declared an independent state in the northwest and southwest, home to most of the anglophone minority in the majority French-speaking country.
Source: theguardian