'Gun battle' leaves one dead in Cameroon

One civilian has been killed and five others injured following gunfire in the Cameroonian city of Bamenda.

The fatality was a separatist fighter, a source at the state-run Bamenda Regional Hospital said.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC they heard gunshots at 22:00 local time (21:00 GMT).

"My children were terrified," one resident told me, adding: "It was very serious. Maybe it was a confrontation between the soldiers and separatist fighters. Or, it could just have been the military shooting into the air to scare off the separatists."

Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon's Anglophone North-West region, has been rocked by waves of violence.

Soldiers yesterday raided the Alabukam neighbourhood, where suspected separatists are believed to be operating from.

Cameroon's Prime Minister Philémon Yang says more than 84 soldiers and police officers have been killed by secessionist fighters over the past year.

No official figures are available for civilian and separatists' deaths at the hands of the security forces.



BBC

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