Fighting between Cameroon’s soldiers and separatists militias from the Anglophone Northwest region of the country has seen scores killed and dozens of others injured, the Cameroonian military said on Wednesday.
The military said its troops “killed scores of armed separatists in clashes between Monday and Tuesday with at least 15 rebels surrendering to the government troops.”
Local media reports that in the turbulent Ndop district, seven bodies were found in bushes on Tuesday morning following heavy fighting between separatist rebels and government troops.
A resident of the district, Anyam Edison Penn, said the clashes halted trade in Ngoketunjia, where Ndop is located.
“For the past weeks, fighting in Ngoketunjia has been very very intensive between the separatists and the defense forces, and this has been affecting so many lives, so many persons killed and it has been a burden on our side,” Penn, a businessman, told journalists.
“Thousands of people were like they were in a cage. I pray and hope that the crisis will be resolved so that we, the civilians, should not be suffering like this,” he said.
The separatists fighters had vowed to Disrupt elections for the Senate scheduled to hold on March 12 and last month, killed two election officials.
Cameroon’s highest-ranking official in the area, Handerson Quetong Kongeh, said military raids on Monday and Tuesday targeted at least five separatist camps, saw over 30 of the fighters killed.
However, a spokesman for one of the rebel groups, the Ambazonia Defense Forces, Capo Daniel, in a statement on Telegram, said both separatists and government troops suffered casualties in the clashes.
“We have killed over 38 Cameroon military men since Paul Biya announced the election. We have authorized our forces to carry out attacks on critical infrastructure.
“Our recruitments are high, our spirits are high, and we will continue to attack the Cameroon military. We have called for appropriate punishment for those who violate this ban against the election,” Daniel said.