An
opposition senator was shot dead in Western Cameroon where a bloody insurgency
has been waged by anglophone separatists against the state, his party and an
official said.
Senator Henry Kemende whose body was found Wednesday,
“was killed (overnight) by unidentified armed assailants”, a local
communications ministry official confirmed on condition of anonymity.
He had
been a lawyer and lawmaker for the Social Democratic Front (SDF), one of
Cameroon’s main opposition parties.
The
killing happened in Bamenda, a major town in the country’s northwest region
which, along with the southwest, has seen a spate of insurgent violence by
members of the regions’ anglophone minority against the predominantly
French-speaking security forces.
“We
recovered his body, his chest riddled with bullets,” Joshua Osih, the vice president of the SDF, confirmed to AFP.
The
vehicle in which the victim was travelling at the time of the attack had
“disappeared”, he added.
A Senate
official who requested anonymity confirmed the information to AFP.
No one
had come forward to claim the killing as of Wednesday afternoon.
“We
assume it’s the ‘Ambazonians’,” Osih
suggested, referring to the armed anglophone insurgent groups.
Cameroon
has been torn by violence since October 2017, when militants declared an
independent state in the northwest and southwest, home to most of the anglophone
minority in the majority French-speaking country.
Both
the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the
fighting, which has killed more than 3,000 people and forced over 700,000 to
flee their homes.
Armed
groups are regularly accused of abducting, killing or injuring civilians whom
they accuse of “collaborating” with Cameroonian authorities.
Several
SDF leaders have been targeted previously including John Fru Ndi, the party’s president.
Fru Ndi has run several times against President Paul Biya, 88, who has ruled
the country with an iron grip for nearly 40 years.
Osih said separatist elements opposed
the SDF because it is a predominantly English-speaking party that participates
in the political process and is opposed to the partition of Cameroon.
It is
the third-largest party in the national assembly, the lower house which, like
the senate, is dominated by Biya’s
RDPC party.
NGOs
and the UN accuse Biya of repressing
dissent in the English-speaking areas as well as clamping down hard on
political opponents.
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