At least six teachers were abducted on the morning of Tuesday, November 3, from a Presbyterian school in Kumbo in the English-speaking northwestern region. According to confirmatory sources affiliated with the RFI, the unidentified attackers were heavily armed.
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According to testimony from the teachers’ associations, it was around kl. 10 Tuesday that armed men entered the grounds of the Presbyterian elementary school in Kumbo. They gathered several dozen students from 4 to 12 years as well as all the teachers at the school according to sources close to the religious to lead them to an indefinite place and start negotiations in exchange of their release.
But civil society in Kumbo and the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon quickly mobilized and achieved, under still unknown conditions, the release of the school children. According to our information, it was the teachers who were targeted. According to local media, the kidnappers allegedly ordered the children not to return to school.
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Kidnappings have increased in English-speaking Cameroon since 2017
The teachers are still being held captive. The kidnappers demand a ransom. Local and regional authorities were in an emergency meeting during the afternoon but have not yet made any statements.
This kidnapping takes place a week after attack on a school southwest, where eight students were killed. Kidnappings are becoming more and more frequent in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, which since 2017 have been a conflict between security forces and separatist militiamen.
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