Militants have kidnapped 8 people, including 5 Catholic priests and a nun, from a church in western Cameroon, where a bloody war is raging between English-speaking separatists and the army, the Catholic Church said Sunday.
Murders, robberies and kidnappings are frequent in the area, where armed separatist groups regularly attack schools, teachers, Catholic and Protestant churches and their bishops. But local priests say the scale of Friday’s kidnapping is “completely unprecedented.”
The church said in a statement obtained by AFP on Sunday that “St. Mary’s Church in Na Trang was burned by unknown gunmen and kidnapped five priests, a nun and two worshipers,” without further details. The village of Wenchang is located in the southwest of the country.
Archbishop Andrei Nekia, who wrote the statement, did not give details of the attack or attribute it to any side, stressing that the abductors did not provide a “specific reason” for the operation.
No single group usually claims responsibility for attacks and kidnappings, but these are often perpetrated by separatist groups and often result in the release of hostages for ransom or after negotiations with local traditional and religious leaders.
An English-speaking minority lives in the northwest and southwest of the country, where for nearly six years there has been a bloody conflict between armed groups calling for the independence of the country they call “Ambazonia” and widely deployed security forces. by order of President Paul Biya (89), who ruled Cameroon with an iron fist for nearly four decades.
International non-governmental organizations and the UN regularly accuse both sides of committing crimes and atrocities against civilians who are the main victims of this war, and accuse Biya of relentless persecution in the English-speaking regions, as well as against any political opposition in the country.
Part of the English-speaking population feels rejected by the French-speaking majority, which dominates the central government.
The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people since the end of 2016 and forced more than a million people to flee, according to the International Crisis Group.
Source: AP