Catholic priest shot dead in
Cameroon unrest
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| CAMEROON-UNREST .- AFP |
A missionary priest from Kenya has been shot dead in
Cameroon's troubled South West region where hundreds have been killed or
displaced in an escalation of separatist violence.
By Linda Bordoni
Kenyan Father Cosmas Ombato was a young
Mill Hill missionary serving as assistant parish priest of the St Martin of
Tours Parish in the village of Kembong, in restive southwest Cameroon.
He was reportedly caught in crossfire between the military
and armed separatists.
Violence
Violence has flared in the West African nation’s South West
and North West regions in months of fighting between government forces and
English-speaking armed militants who want an independent state.
In October, an American Baptist missionary was shot dead in
the town of Bamenda in the North West, where scores of students and their
teachers have been abducted from schools.
Another Kenyan missionary was killed in Buea in the South
West in April 2017.
Separatist claims
The crisis in English-speaking Cameroon started in 2016 as
an industrial strike by lawyers and teachers asking for investment and
development which – they say – is being withheld from the Francophone regions
and the recently re-elected President, 83-year-old Paul Biya, who has been in
power for 36 years.
The unrest snowballed into an internal armed conflict since
last year when separatists joined and symbolically declared the independence of
the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.
Hundreds of people dead and displaced
At least 400 civilians and more than 175 members of the
security forces have been killed, according to statistics by local and
international groups that have been documenting abuses in the escalating
violence.
More than 300,000 people have fled the violence, many of
them now living from hand-to-mouth and exposed to varied dangers in the
forests, and some across the border into Nigeria.
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