Three anglophone separatists were killed in clashes with Cameroonian security forces in the flashpoint southwest town of Buea, a day before presidential polls, sources said Saturday.
The incident on Friday followed the killing of an English-speaking priest by a soldier on Thursday in Bamenda, capital of the northwest — the other largely English-speaking region engulfed by the anglophone separatist uprising.
The churchman’s slaying was confirmed in a statement issued by the town’s diocese.
The unrest came as Cameroonians prepared to vote in polls that will be marked by unprecedented violence in the anglophone regions and opposition manoeuvres to oust President Paul Biya who is seeking a seventh term.
“Three separatists were killed Friday in Small Soppo, Buea,” said a source close to the security forces, whose account was confirmed by witnesses contacted by AFP.
“They were killed during exchanges of fire between the security forces and the separatists,” added the source.
“I saw the bodies of three people in Small Soppo,” added one of the witnesses.
The army also attacked a separatist base at Lysoka, some 15 kilometres from Buea, but no estimate for injuries or fatalities was immediately available.
In Bamenda the priest was killed in front of a church following a mass, according to the statement which was signed by the archbishop of Bamenda, Cornelius Fontem Esua, as well assistant bishop Michael Miabesue Bibi.
A soldier fired “three shots into his neck and he died instantly,” said the statement.
The situation in the southwest was tense on Saturday a day ahead of polls.
It follows the killings of a civilian, a police officer and a suspected separatist in the town of Kumba, 55 kilometres (35 miles) north of Buea in the week.
Eight candidates, including Biya, 85, will face off in polls which will feature a limited opposition coalition for the first time since 1992 after presidential hopeful Akere Muna threw his weight behind Maurice Kamto on Friday.
Separatist fighters have threatened to disrupt the vote in the anglophone regions but Yaounde has insisted that a raft of security measures will protect the poll.
