A homemade bomb thrown through the roof of a university lecture hall wounded 11 students on Wednesday, the vice chancellor said, in an English-speaking region of Cameroon in the grip of a bloody separatist conflict.<\/P>
University of Buea vice-chancellor Horace Ngomo Manga said “the device fell to the ground and exploded.”<\/P>
One boy and 10 girls were wounded, he told state radio CRTV, adding that all were in a stable condition.<\/P>
He did not elaborate on the nature of the bomb or who might have thrown it.<\/P>
Buea is the capital of Cameroon’s Southwest region. Both the Southwest and Northwest regions are mainly English-speaking in the otherwise predominantly French-speaking central African country.<\/P>
A decades-long campaign by militants to redress perceived discrimination at the hands of the francophone majority flared into a declaration of independence on October 1, 2017, sparking a crackdown by security forces.<\/P>
The conflict has claimed more than 3,500 lives and forced 700,000 people to flee their homes, according to NGO estimates that have not been updated in more than a year despite an escalation in violence in recent months.<\/P>
The United Nations and international organizations regularly denounce abuses and crimes committed against civilians by both sides.<\/P>
Wednesday’s bombing has not been claimed, but the anglophone separatists have regularly attacked schools and universities that they accuse of favoring French-language education.<\/P>
The separatists have also recently ramped up attacks on the country’s armed forces using improvised explosive devices.<\/P>
In September, a Buea court sentenced four men to death over the killing of seven schoolchildren a year earlier, however Human Rights Watch called the trial a sham.<\/P>
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Source: Voice of America<\/P>
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