More than 600,000 children out of school amid unrest in Cameroon

Thousands of schools have closed down altogether because of kidnappings and threats by radical separatists in Cameroon since a crisis erupted in the two English-speaking regions of the country late in 2016.

On November 9, 2016, "hordes of people staged an assault on the classrooms in Excel College, wielding machetes and telling everybody to leave the premises or risk a bloodbath," a teacher in the private school recalled.

Schools have been a prime target for breakaway groups angered by the teaching of French, used in most of the central African country.

In two years, the conflict by English-speaking separatists demanding independence in the Northwest and Southwest regions has claimed more than 2,500 lives. UN agencies say that more than 530,000 have been forced to flee their homes.

UNICEF Spokesperson Toby Fricker said that some 1.3 million people, including around 650,000 children, are now in need of some form of humanitarian assistance. Around 450,000 of these people, half of whom are children, are internally displaced.  

At 74 schools have been destroyed, and exposed students, teachers and school personnel to violence, abduction and intimidation, UN said.

Separatist attacks are frequent elsewhere in the town, which sprawls over the eastern flank of Mount Cameroon. 

Arison Tamfu reports.