Cameroon has imposed a forty-eight-hour curfew on its English-speaking regions a day ahead of the one-year anniversary of a symbolic “independence” declaration by anglophone separatists. Officials said this today.
The anniversary on Monday will kick off a crucial week for the country which heads to the polls next Sunday to vote in an election that anglophone secessionists have threatened to disrupt.
The Governor of the largely English-speaking northwest region, Adolphe Lele Lafrique, said the movement of people between areas in the northwest is banned for a period of forty-eight hours from Sunday, the thirtieth of September until Monday, the first of October.
Last year’s independence declaration marked the start of a crisis that has cast a shadow over the October 7 elections, in which 85-year-old President Paul Biya, who has ruled the country for 35 years, is seeking a seventh term in office. Hundreds of civilians and dozens of security forces are understood to have been killed in the majority French-speaking country’s anglophone northwest and southwest this year.
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