Separatist rebels on Monday killed around 20 people, including women and children, in an attack on a village in one of Cameroon’s restive anglophone regions, the government said.
The overnight assault occurred at Egbekaw village, western Cameroon, the scene of deadly clashes between rebels and government forces for seven years.
“There were men, women and children, more than 20 killed,” minister at the presidency Mengot Victor Arrey-Nkongho told public radio. “It’s intolerable.”
Cameroon’s primarily English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions have been gripped by conflict since separatists declared independence in 2017.
That followed decades of grievances over perceived discrimination by the francophone majority.
In the middle of the night “terrorists” opened fire with guns and used “traditional arms”, Manyu department prefect Viang Mekala said on the radio.
“There are about 20 dead and seven seriously wounded, a dozen houses burnt,” he added.
Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting.
There had been no claim of responsibility over the attack on Egbekaw.
