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The
unidentified assailants shot at a truck carrying employees of
Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) - the country's largest
state-owned agro-industrial firm whose workers have previously
been targeted by Anglophone armed separatists fighting for an
independent state.
The ambush took place at around 5:30 p.m. local time near the
town of Tiko after the labourers finished their work, said
Gabriel Mbene Vefonge, president of the Cameroon Agricultural
and Allied Workers Trade Union (CAAWOTU).
"They first shot the driver to immobilize the vehicle. They
killed three other workers who were sitting in front before
shooting sporadically," Vefonge told Reuters by phone,
confirming that five were killed in total.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. The
CDC, police, and a separatist representative did not immediately
respond to requests for comment.
The survivors of the attack were being treated for bullet wounds
at the CDC Cottage Hospital Tiko, a nurse there said, speaking
on condition of anonymity and declining to give further details.
The separatist conflict, which was sparked by decades of real
and perceived marginalisation of Cameroon’s Anglophone community
by the Francophone-dominated government, turned bloody in 2017
after modest protests were violently suppressed.
Since then, thousands have been killed in the central African
state, and rebels and government troops have taken turns to
commit grievous atrocities.
Last month, the government said it had not mandated any country
to facilitate talks with the separatists to help end the
conflict, despite Canada saying it had received a request to
work on a peace process.
(Editing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by David Gregorio)
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