Cameroon soldiers have killed at least 30 separatists in two days of intense fighting in the turbulent English-speaking region, a military spokesman has said.

The military also freed people held by separatists during its two-day operation in the Mayo Binka area near Nkambe, spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck told the Associated Press news agency on Wednesday.

In a separate incident, the mayor of Nwa, a local council in the same region, was killed by suspected separatists, Emmanuel Bunyui, mayor of the nearby town of Ndu, told the Associated Press.

"When we hoist the Cameroon flag in the council premises, we are targeted by the armed men who insist that we should instead display their blue and white flag," Bunyui said.

Many mayors in English-speaking regions have been targeted by armed separatists, who in 2016 began demanding an independent English-speaking state, which they call Ambazonia.

Recently, 79 students and three staff were kidnapped from a school by suspected separatists, and later released.

Violent divide

Anglophones account for about one-fifth of Cameroon's 25 million population.

The conflict has killed more than 400 people since last year and has emerged as President Paul Biya's greatest security problem in his nearly four decades of rule.

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The two sides often provide conflicting accounts of the fighting, but both have reported heavier casualties in recent weeks.

The army has burned villages and killed unarmed civilians, forcing thousands to flee to French-speaking regions or neighbouring Nigeria.

In November last year, Biya declared the crisis a war.

Biya was re-elected to his seventh term in October, although few votes were cast in Anglophone regions.

Politicians have repeatedly called on Biya to initiate dialogue to stem the violence. The 85-year-old president has refused, repeatedly stating that Cameroon is one and indivisible.

The United Nations has condemned both the Cameroon military and separatists for using unnecessary and excessive force.

The linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War I, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.</s>YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — Cameroon’s military has killed at least 30 separatists in two days of intense fighting in the turbulent English-speaking North West region, a military spokesman said Wednesday. The military freed people held…

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — Cameroon’s military has killed at least 30 separatists in two days of intense fighting in the turbulent English-speaking North West region, a military spokesman said Wednesday.

The military freed people held by separatists during its two-day operation, military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck said Wednesday. Fighting was intense in the Mayo Binka area near Nkambe, he said. While no soldiers have been killed, he said the death toll for armed separatists may increase, as fighters escape into the bush.

In a separate incident, the mayor of Nwa, a local council in the same region, was found dead Wednesday and he is believed to have been killed by separatists, said Emmanuel Bunyui, the mayor of the nearby town of Ndu. Many mayors in English-speaking regions have been targeted by armed separatists demanding an independent English-speaking state, which they call Ambazonia.

“When we hoist the Cameroon flag in the council premises, we are targeted by the armed men who insist that we should instead display their blue and white flag,” Bunyui said.

These incidents have highlighted the separatist unrest in Cameroon, which began in 2016, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers in the northwest and southwest staged demonstrations calling for reforms, criticizing what they called the marginalization of the Anglophone population, which accounts for about one-fifth of the country’s 25 million people.

Violence increased after factions of separatists armed themselves following a government clampdown on protests in 2017. Armed separatists have vowed to destabilize the regions and hundreds of civilians have been killed and dozens of schools have been burned and teachers threatened.

In the past year, more than 1,200 people including separatists, police, military and gendarmes have been killed in the fighting, according to military spokesman Badjeck.

Recently 79 students and three staff were kidnapped from a school by suspected separatists, and they have all now been released.

More than 100 civilians have escaped the violence and fled to the capital, Yaounde.

“I am just going to nowhere. I am afraid,” said Kenneth Kongyu, 19, who joined 75 other people who walked 60 kilometers (37 miles) for two days to escape violence in Ndu, Bunyui’s town. “When they come to the market, they shoot from every angle.”

Tatah Oscar, 17, said he is a former fighter. He said many young Cameroonians are joining the separatists because their families have been killed by military “so they don’t have somebody to count on again … I am pleading on the government to try and solve the problem so that we the youths we can go back to school.”

Col. Badjeck, however, said “Most of the time the terrorists operate and hide among civilians and the world has an impression that civilians are being killed, but our military is professional.”

In November last year, Cameroonian President Paul Biya declared the crisis a war. Biya was re-elected to his seventh term in October, although few votes were cast in war-torn Anglophone regions.

Politicians have repeatedly called on Biya to initiate dialogue to stem the violence. The 85-year-old president, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, has repeatedly stated that Cameroon is one and indivisible and that he is not ready to negotiate.

The conflict poses a serious challenge for Cameroon, a close U.S. security ally in combating extremism and a new member of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The United Nations have condemned both the Cameroon military and separatists for using unnecessary and excessive force and Amnesty International criticized the “horrific escalation of violence” in English-speaking regions.

Nearly a quarter-million more people have fled the ongoing violence, many leaving their homes on foot with their belongings teetering on their heads.

Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.</s>Cameroon's military has killed at least 30 separatists in two days of intense fighting in the turbulent...</s>YAOUNDE, Cameroon Herald-Mail Media | Clashes in Cameroon between separatists and security forces have left 28 militants dead, the military said Tuesday.

Soldiers killed 19 separatists Tuesday in Mayo Binka, near Nkambe, in the English-speaking region, said a spokesman for the security forces, Didier Badjeck. A day before, nine separatists were also killed in fighting in Nkambe.

The majority of the Central African nation’s roughly 23 million residents speak French, while only a minority near the border to Nigeria speak English. The minority Anglophone community has long felt discriminated against by the Francophone majority.

The former French colony has been troubled by unrest since its two main English-speaking areas announced in 2016 that they wished to secede and form a new country called Ambazonia.</s>Twenty-five separatists were killed on Tuesday in fighting in a restive English-speaking region of Cameroon, security officials said, according to Daily mail.

“Twenty-five ‘Amba Boys’ were killed in three clashes in Mbot,” a village near the town of Nkambe, a source in the capital Yaounde said on Wednesday, confirming a security source in the troubled Northwest Region.

“Amba Boys” refers to separatists who last year launched an armed campaign for the independence of Cameroon’s two anglophone regions, which they call Ambazonia.</s>Twenty-five separatists were killed Tuesday in fighting in a restive English-speaking region of Cameroon, security officials said Wednesday.

"Twenty-five 'Amba Boys' were killed in three clashes in Mbot," a village near the town of Nkambe, a source in the capital Yaounde told the AFP, confirming a security source in the troubled Northwest Region.

"Amba Boys" refers to separatists who last year launched an armed campaign for the independence of Cameroon's two Anglophone regions, which they call Ambazonia.

The conflict between Anglophone separatists and government forces has killed more than 400 people in western Cameroon since last year and has turned into Cameroonian President Paul Biya’s greatest security problem in nearly four decades of rule.

The two sides often provide conflicting accounts of the fighting, but both have reported heavier casualties in recent weeks, with dozens killed.

The latest clashes came a week after armed men released more than 80 people, most of them schoolchildren, who were seized in the western city of Bamenda.

The central African nation faces a number of security problems, including a Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.

At 85, Biya is one of Africa’s oldest rulers. But while he has kept an iron grip on power for over three decades, in recent years, he spends much of his time abroad, earning the moniker, of the “absentee president".

Last month, Biya won his seventh term after a controversial presidential election that saw a crackdown on the opposition during the campaign season.

The Anglophone separatist crisis was sparked against the predominantly Francophone central government after authorities violently repressed peaceful protests against perceived marginalisation of the English-speaking minority.

The army has burned villages and killed unarmed civilians, according to residents, forcing thousands to flee to French-speaking regions or neighbouring Nigeria.

The linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.</s>YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Cameroon's military says it has killed least 30 separatists in the past few days in the country's restive North West region.

Military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck said Wednesday that figures may increase after intense fighting in the Mayo Binka area.

Badjeck said no soldiers died in the fighting. He said the military freed people held by separatists and more than 100 fleeing the violence have arrived in the capital, Yaounde.

Hundreds have been killed in the past year in fighting between the military and armed separatists in Cameroon's northwestern and southwestern regions. The trouble started a year ago the government clamped down on peaceful demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they said was their marginalization by Cameroon's French-speaking majority.</s>At least 15 people have been killed in a new bout of fighting between Cameroon army troops and separatist rebels, the two sides said on Tuesday, in a rise in violence since President Paul Biya won a seventh term in power in October.

The conflict between Anglophone separatists, who want to create an independent state called Ambazonia, and government forces has killed more than 400 people in western Cameroon since last year and has emerged as Biya’s greatest security problem in nearly four decades of rule.

The two sides often provide conflicting accounts of the fighting, but both have reported heavier casualties in recent weeks, with dozens killed.

Twenty-three separatists have been killed in clashes with government troops since Nov. 10 near the town of Nkambe in Cameroon’s English-speaking Northwest region, while another six have been killed in nearby Ndu, Army representative Didier Badjeck said.

Ivo Tapang, spokesman for the Ambazonian Defence Force, one of the main Anglophone secessionist militias, confirmed that fighting had occurred in Nkambe, but disputed Badjeck’s account.

He said ADF troops had encircled a government army truck near Nkambe after it was overturned by a roadside bomb on Saturday. “Two of our fighters were killed and we killed 13 of them,” he said.

The fighting follows clashes on Oct. 23 that killed at least 10 and up to 30 combatants, according to differing accounts from the two sides that could not be independently verified.

Separatist militias launched an insurrection last year against the predominantly Francophone central government after authorities violently repressed peaceful protests against perceived marginalisation of the English-speaking minority.

The army has burned villages and killed unarmed civilians, residents have told Reuters, forcing thousands to flee to French-speaking regions or neighbouring Nigeria.

Threats by the separatists disrupted voting in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions during the Oct. 7 election, which Biya won in a landslide to extend his 36-year rule.

The linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.</s>DOUALA, Cameroon - Twenty-five separatists were killed in fighting in a restive English-speaking region of Cameroon, security officials said Wednesday.

"Twenty-five 'Amba Boys' were killed in three clashes" on Tuesday in Mbot, a village near the town of Nkambe, a source in the capital Yaounde said, confirming a security source in the troubled Northwest Region.

"Amba Boys" refers to separatists who last year launched an armed campaign for the independence of Cameroon's two anglophone regions, which they call Ambazonia.

Photos obtained by AFP from a source close to the security services showed about 10 bodies lined up on the ground.

Weapons, mainly shotguns, were placed alongside.

A source close to the security services said the fighters had set up a base in a school in Mayo Binka, a few kilometres (miles) from Nkambe.

Two security officials told AFP that the armed forces did not suffer any losses in the clashes.

Eighty percent of Cameroon's population are French speakers while the rest are anglophones, who are concentrated in the country's west, in the Northwest and neighbouring Southwest Regions.

Years-long frustration at perceived discrimination fed demands for anglophone autonomy, which were rejected by the central government.

In 2017, radicals became ascendant in the anglophone movement and declared an independent state, the Republic of Ambazonia, which is not recognised internationally.

They have attacked troops and police and torched schools and other buildings deemed to be symbols of the central state.

The government, in response, has launched a brutal crackdown.

Fighting in the two regions has killed between 450 to 500 civilians, 185 members of the security forces and hundreds of armed separatists think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report this month.

"The Anglophone conflict is gradually turning into a civil war," it said.

According to an October update by the UN's refugee agency OCHA, there are a total of 437,000 people from the anglophone regions displaced within the country, while some 27,000 people have fled to Nigeria.</s>Twenty-five separatists were killed in fighting in a restive English-speaking region of Cameroon, security officials said Wednesday.

"Twenty-five 'Amba Boys' were killed in three clashes" on Tuesday in Mbot, a village near the town of Nkambe, a source in the capital Yaounde said, confirming a security source in the troubled Northwest Region.

"Amba Boys" refers to separatists who last year launched an armed campaign for the independence of Cameroon's two anglophone regions, which they call Ambazonia.

Photos obtained by AFP from a source close to the security services showed about 10 bodies lined up on the ground.

Weapons, mainly shotguns, were placed alongside.

A source close to the security services said the fighters had set up a base in a school in Mayo Binka, a few kilometres (miles) from Nkambe.

Two security officials told AFP that the armed forces did not suffer any losses in the clashes.

Eighty percent of Cameroon's population are French speakers while the rest are anglophones, who are concentrated in the country's west, in the Northwest and neighbouring Southwest Regions.

Years-long frustration at perceived discrimination fed demands for anglophone autonomy, which were rejected by the central government.

In 2017, radicals became ascendant in the anglophone movement and declared an independent state, the Republic of Ambazonia, which is not recognised internationally.
The Cameroonian Armed Forces kill at least 30 Ambazonian separatists in two-days of intense clashes in Cameroon's English-speaking region. A mayor in Donga-Mantung is also shot dead.