“Twenty-five ‘Amba Boys’ were killed in three clashes in Mbot,” a village near the town of Nkambe, a source in the capital Yaounde told the AFP, confirming a security source in the troubled Northwest Region.<\/span><\/p>\n “Amba Boys” refers to separatists who last year launched an armed campaign for the independence of\u00a0Cameroon<\/a>‘s two Anglophone regions, which they call Ambazonia.<\/span><\/p>\n The conflict between Anglophone separatists and government forces has killed more than 400 people in western Cameroon since last year and has turned into Cameroonian President\u00a0Paul Biya<\/a>\u2019s greatest security problem in nearly four decades of rule.<\/span><\/p>\n The two sides often provide conflicting accounts of the\u00a0<\/span>fighting, but both have reported heavier casualties in recent\u00a0<\/span>weeks, with dozens killed.<\/p>\n An ageing, ‘absentee president’<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest clashes came a week after\u00a0armed men released more than 80 people<\/a>, most of them schoolchildren, who were seized in the western city of Bamenda.<\/span><\/p>\n The central African nation faces a number of security problems, including a\u00a0Boko Haram<\/a>\u00a0insurgency in the northeast.<\/span><\/p>\n At 85, Biya is one of Africa\u2019s oldest rulers. But while he has kept an iron grip on power for over three decades, in recent years, he spends much of his time abroad, earning the moniker, of the \u201cabsentee president”.<\/span><\/p>\n Last month, Biya\u00a0won his seventh term<\/a>\u00a0after a controversial presidential election that saw a crackdown on the opposition during the campaign season.<\/span><\/p>\n A conflict with roots to colonial times<\/strong><\/p>\n The Anglophone separatist crisis was sparked\u00a0<\/span>against the predominantly Francophone central government after\u00a0<\/span>authorities violently repressed peaceful protests against\u00a0<\/span>perceived marginalisation of the English-speaking minority.<\/span><\/p>\n The army has burned villages and killed unarmed civilians,\u00a0<\/span>according to residents, forcing thousands to flee to\u00a0<\/span>French-speaking regions or neighbouring Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n The linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War\u00a0<\/span>One, when the League of Nations divided the former German colony\u00a0<\/span>of Kamerun between the allied French and British victors.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twenty-five separatists were killed Tuesday in fighting in a restive English-speaking region of Cameroon, security officials said Wednesday. “Twenty-five ‘Amba Boys’ were killed in three clashes in Mbot,” a village near the town of Nkambe, a source in the capital Yaounde told the AFP, confirming a security source in the troubled Northwest Region. “Amba Boys” refers to separatists who last… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2502,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501\/revisions\/2502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}