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Cameroon Teachers, Students Abandon Schools After Attacks

Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   YAOUNDÃ - Authorities in Cameroon say schools in rebel areas that
   reopened for the first time in four years are again being abandoned due
   to lack of security. Separatist forces are blamed for recent attacks
   that killed at least six teachers and seven schoolchildren.

   In a video shared on Cameroon social media, seven armed rebels order
   teachers at the Kulu Memorial College in the southwestern town of Limbe
   to strip naked.

   Teachers and students are shown crying for help as the teachers are
   humiliated then ordered to close the school and to leave.

   Cameroon authorities confirmed the school on Wednesday was attacked.

   Limbe teacher Lesslie Tabot refuses to instruct class until the
   government fulfils its promise to protect schools.

   "The government assured parents and stakeholders of education that this
   time around maximum security has been put in place to ensure the smooth
   functioning of schools in the Northwest and Southwest regions. But what
   do we get every day? Students being attacked left and right, teachers
   also being victims."

   Cameroon's Anglophone rebels have been fighting since 2017 to create an
   independent state for English-speakers, separate from
   French-speaking-majority Cameroon.

   Last month, 140 schools in the troubled Northwest and Southwest regions
   reopened for the first time in four years after Cameroon's government
   said those areas were secure.

   But the military acknowledges that in the past three weeks, rebels have
   killed at least six teachers and seven children, abducted 23 teachers,
   and set three schools on fire.

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