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Police maintained a clampdown in
English- speaking Cameroon on Monday
a day after the country ’s restive
anglophone minority declared symbolic
independence , amid clashes that left
seven dead .
Highways in the anglophone Southwest
Region remained blocked or filtered by
police checkpoints in the early morning ,
and in the city of Buea the streets were
virtually deserted and heavily patrolled.
Police and troops set up five roadblocks
on the vital 70 - kilometre (43 - mile) road
link between Cameroon’ s economic hub
of Douala and Buea , Southwest Region’ s
chief city, an AFP journalist saw .
In the rundown Buea district of Mile 17
— a reputed haven for separatists —
rocks , hurled in demonstrations on
Sunday, were strewn in the streets .
Police carried out overnight arrests in
one of the city’ s districts, and left with
individuals who were in handcuffs , an
AFP journalist saw .
On social media , pro - independence
campaigners reported a wave of raids
and arrests, but it was difficult to
confirm their claim .
On Sunday , separatists used the October
1 anniversary of the official unification
of the English- and French - speaking
parts of Cameroon to declare
independence for “ Ambazonia ,” the
name of the state they want to create.
Clashes left at least seven dead , all of
them at the hands of security forces ,
according to a toll compiled by AFP.
Four were killed on the sidelines of pro-
independence demonstrations and three
were prisoners who tried to escape from
a jail in the town of Kumbo .
Amnesty International on Monday
called for the government to open an
inquiry into the deaths .
The violence was the culmination of
weeks of mounting tension in the
Southwest and Northwest Regions —
home to anglophones who account for
about a fifth of the West African
nation’s population of 22 million .
English- speakers complain they have
suffered decades of economic inequality
and social injustice at the hands of the
French- speaking majority , especially in
education and the judiciary.
Most anglophone campaigners want the
country to resume a federalist system —
an approach that followed the 1961
unification but was later scrapped in
favour of a centralised government run
from the capital Yaounde . A hardline
minority is calling for secession .
But both measures are opposed by the
country ’s long - ruling president, 84 -
year- old Paul Biya .
The anglophone- francophone rift dates
back to 1961 , when a former British
entity, Southern Cameroons , united with
Cameroon after its independence from
France in 1960.
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