Re-elected Cameroon president warns separatists

Cameroon’s president on Tuesday warned Anglophone separatists to lay down their arms or face the full force of the law, a day after schoolchildren were abducted in the rebel region.

Clashes between a secessionist movement and the army began more than a year ago in west Cameroon, killing more than 400 civilians and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

On Monday, unidentified assailants kidnapped 79 children, their principal and a driver from the PSS Nkwen school in Bamenda in Northwest Region and took them into the bush outside town, military and government sources said.

An army spokesperson blamed separatists for Monday’s kidnapping. A separatist spokesperson denied involvement and said government soldiers had carried it out, as a ploy to discredit the insurgents.

Making an inauguration speech after re-election in October that extends his 36-year-old rule, President Paul Biya did not mention the kidnapping but attacked the separatists.

“They need to know that they will face the rigour of the law and the determination of our defence and security forces,” Biya said in the national assembly. “I appeal to them to lay down their arms.”

Last week, a US Baptist missionary was shot dead amid fighting between the army and separatists in Bamenda.

The secessionists have imposed curfews and closed schools as part of a rebellion against the French-speaking government, which they claim has marginalised the Anglophone minority.

Samuel Fonki, a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, said he had been mediating with the kidnappers for the children’s release. He said separatists were responsible. The search for the children continued on Tuesday. About 200 parents gathered outside the school, waiting to hear if their children were among those who had been abducted or were unharmed at the school.

The kidnapping was a chilling echo of the 2014 abduction of the Chibok girls by Boko Haram in neighbouring Nigeria.

There are no known links between the Cameroon separatists and the Nigerian Islamist militant group.