Suspected Cameroon separatists abduct top civil servant, attack bus

A top Cameroonian civil servant has been abducted by suspected Anglophone separatists.

Ivo Leke Tambo, recently-appointed chairman of Cameroon’s Anglophone educational board, GCE, was abducted just outside the southwestern town of Lewo .

In a video circulated on social media on Saturday, Leke Tambo could be seen seated on the ground in a bush semi-naked.

Elsewhere, social media footage showed an attack on a bus carrying some 30 people by suspected armed members of the self-declared Ambazonia Defence Forces.

A section of Cameroonians have condemned the acts.

“I just want to tell them that everyone wants peace. Nobody wants war in this country. I think we are all Cameroonians and we want to live in peace,” said Esther Ngala an opposition MP.

Authorities did not immediately confirm the abduction of Leke Tambo, the latest in a slew of abductions in recent weeks.

Tension has soared in Anglophone parts of Cameroon accounting for about a fifth of the population, since separatists on October declared the self-proclaimed republic of “Ambazonia”.

The tension was ramped up further in January when 47 separatists, including their leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, were extradited from Nigeria.