Several people were injured on Wednesday January 12 in an exchange of fire between soldiers and armed men in western Cameroon in the grip of a bloody conflict, in the city of Buea which is home to teams competing for the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) football, told AFP the mayor of the locality. “There was an exchange of fire in Buea yesterday and several people were injured”, said David Mafani Namange, referring to “sporadic incidents”. “The security forces intervened quickly and an investigation is underway to determine who is responsible”, he continued. The attack has not yet been claimed.
Secessionist armed groups, which demand the independence of two western regions inhabited mainly by the English-speaking minority of Cameroon, had threatened before the opening of the CAN to disrupt the progress of the competition-queen of African football.“The separatists attacked several neighborhoods in Buea, army reinforcements arrived and responded”, told AFP a senior military official contacted by phone and who requested anonymity. Buea is the capital of the South-West which, along with the North-West, are the two predominantly English-speaking regions in a country 80% inhabited by French-speaking people.
“There were frequent exchanges of gunfire between soldiers and separatists, the more they advanced towards the city center, the more panic there was”
Me Agbor Balla, director of the NGO Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africato AFP
The lawyer evokes a death in the fighting, “who wore civilian clothes”, and one injured. No other source has confirmed this toll.
For five years, after the repression of peaceful demonstrations accusing the central power and the French-speaking majority of the country of ostracism towards the English-speaking people, armed separatists and the military have clashed in a deadly conflict. International NGOs and the UN routinely blame both sides for crimes and atrocities targeting civilians. The conflict has claimed thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands since early 2017, according to the UN and aid workers.
A few weeks before the start of the CAN, certain armed groups promised to disrupt the competition and sent threat letters to the teams which must play their matches in Limbé, a seaside resort in the South-West, and train in Buea.