YAOUNDE, Cameroon
Gunmen in Cameroon killed a local mayor and two others in the restive North West region as the nation observed its National Day on Monday, the regional governor said, the second ambush in two weeks targeting government officials.
Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique
said Mayor Ngong Innocent Ankiambom of the town of Belo, as well as his deputy
mayor and an inspector of basic education, were shot dead as they made their
way to the celebrations.
"I will like to express
deep concerns and ask the population to remain calm," the governor said,
adding that a manhunt had been launched to apprehend and punish the killers.
The officials were shot along
a 200-meter stretch between the town council office and the Belo municipal
grandstand where celebrations were due to take place, according to a local
official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to
the press.
That person said a similar
attack was also carried out in the nearby town of Njinkom, but that the number
of casualties was not yet known due to communications difficulties.
On May 10, separatist fighters
ambushed and killed a commander of a gendarmerie brigade and four of his men in
the Central African country's South West region.
Separatists across the North
West and South West regions typically step up attacks around National Day,
which marks the abolition of the federal system of governance in Cameroon.
This year they said they were
imposing a three-day lockdown, restricting the movement of people and cars, in
the run-up to the event.
None of the armed groups
operating in the region has so far claimed responsibility for Monday's attack.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in Cameroon's English-speaking regions
since conflict erupted in 2017 after protests were violently suppressed.
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