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NINETY CHILDREN KIDNAPPED from a school in a troubled English-speaking region of Cameroon were freed days later in a military operation, the defence ministry said today.
Armed separatist militants on Monday stormed a school in Bamenda, capital of the Northwest Region, seizing 79 schoolboys and three adults, prompting urgent calls for their release.
When the group was freed today, it turned out there were another 11 pupils with them, who had been abducted from the same school five days earlier.
The Presbyterian Church which runs the school said the 11 had been taken on 31 October but the news was kept secret to enable negotiations with the kidnappers.
It was the first mass kidnapping to hit Cameroon and one of the gravest incidents in 13 months of pro-independence violence.
The students and three adults were freed in a military operation which began “in the early hours of the morning”, Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo said in a statement.
“When they have been checked by the [military's] psychological unit and have undergone a thorough medical check, the freed pupils will be soon sent back to their families,” he added.
A six-minute video seen by AFP on Monday showed 11 boys aged about 15 identifying their school and saying they were abducted by the “Amba Boys” – a name for anglophone separatists.
A source close to the establishment said Wednesday these were the 11 who had been snatched on 31 October.
’No ransom demand’
The attack targeted pupils and staff at the Presbyterian Secondary School in the Northwest Region – one of two areas where surging anglophone separatist militancy has been met with a brutal crackdown by authorities.
The chain of events leading up to their release was not immediately clear, nor was the identity of the kidnappers.
Communications Minister Issa Bakary Tchiroma said “all 79 students” had “been released”, while the Presbyterian Church separately announced news about the other 11.
It said the school would remain closed “until further notice”.
On Tuesday, Reverend Foki Samuel Forba, a leading member of the church, said he had been negotiating with the kidnappers, who were not demanding a ransom but the closure of the school.
The kidnappings took place a day before Cameroon’s 85-year-old President Paul Biya was sworn in for a seventh term in office, and coincided with an upsurge of tension in the majority French-speaking country.
Such mass kidnappings were previously unknown in Cameroon, although they are notorious in neighbouring Nigeria where Islamist Boko Haram militants snatched more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014.
So far, 107 have been found or released but the jihadists abducted scores more from neighbouring Yobe state in February this year.
Schools in the firing line
Cameroon’s Biya on Tuesday promised to address “frustrations and aspirations” in English-speaking regions in his first public acknowledgement of resentments in the Northwest and Southwest Regions.
In 2016, anger at perceived discrimination in education, the judiciary and the economy fanned demands for autonomy there.
But Biya refused any concessions and a year later, radicals declared an independent state – the “Republic of Ambazonia” – taking up arms soon after.
Separatists have since attacked police and troops and have targeted other state symbols, prompting a severe official crackdown.
They have also boycotted and torched schools on grounds that the French system discriminates against anglophone pupils.
As the school year resumed in September, several secondary schools were attacked, a headmaster was killed and a teacher was badly wounded.
In the month since Biya won reelection, the security situation in the anglophone areas has deteriorated rapidly, with dozens of opposition supporters arrested, journalists detained, and an American missionary shot dead in his car.
At least 400 civilians and more than 175 police and soldiers have been killed in the year to September, NGO figures show, with the violence forcing more than 300,000 people out of their homes.
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Are charges ever brought against these drivers?
Licence points?
Fines?
Almost every week I get delayed on the Dart due to a bridge strike and it affects 100′s of other commuters too. I would like to know that something is being done.
@Conor Loney: And who takes the blame when the bridge height is lower than than what the sign says?
@Roy Dowling: what bridge is out there thats lower than the sign says .because if thats the case, if you hit the bridge with the right height vehicle for that bridge you could sue the ass off the company
@Roy Dowling: The council engineer who actually measured it in the first place with a steel measuring tape is whipped in his underwear with the aforementioned offending tape until he admits wrongdoing, and then he is forced to wear a sandwich board saying “I am a mathematically illiterate idiot” for a week on the platform of the station.
@Roy Dowling:
Surely you have evidence of this?
@Conor Loney: he was that engineer!
@Roy Dowling: don’t think that happens very often
Laser level on bridge that sets off banks of red flashing lights when a high vehicle approaches.
@Clancy: Belay that competence! Such logical suggestions would never get past SIPTU
“er ouar membars are bein asked to perferm duties dat are outside der contract dere now, so derz gonna have te be an allowance written inte de contract for dah, or else we’ll strike”
@Ryan Carroll: your SIPTU is coming along excellently, though I note you failed to use the % increase phrase. Good work all the same, keep it up and you’ll have many a free dinner ahead.
@Brown Boots: He could throw in a few more “comrades” too.
Surely a type of say limbo bar of same height should be placed on aproach to such bridges. ( as in a fixed bar. Not one that will fall down if truck strkes it. ) Exactly like the ones as you enter some car parks to stop caravans and the likes entering.
@The Viking: but you’d have lads limbo-ing under on the way home from the pub. Also boss, why bring our heritage into it!
@The Viking: I’m afraid you’re very much mistaken. Those bars are not to stop caravans from entering, since such measures would be discriminatory against a minority population in this country. What they are actually are bars for breeding crows to hang out on and find a mate for the breeding season. Although I believe starlings have been know to use them from time to time too – cheeky little monkeys.
Surprised someone hasn’t yet developed an APP to warn drivers they’re approaching a non negotiable bridge.
@Emmet Dillane: They have, it’s called eyesight!
@Emmet Dillane: They have – they’re called road signs. You should keep an eye out for them – they big and yellow and shaped like a diamond.
@Emmet Dillane:
And would the APP be installed on a phone. And what happens if the driver changes vehicle to one which is higher. Onus on the person to change the App setting? If they forget to do this would this create a new problem in which drivers rely on an APP and ignore the road signs? Possible creating more collisions with bridges
@Nick Allen:
All perfectly manageable Nick.
@Emmet Dillane:
Nearly as manageable as getting the driver to read the height sign on every bridge in the country. Should there be an APP for all street signs and should we remove them all?
This subject is brought up regularly on the Journal after each bridge hit and the bars the same height as the bridge and so many meters from each side are usually suggested so why don’t they get the finger out and implement this cheap solution.
@winston smith:
Cheap solution?
How many bridges in Ireland?
Design of said structure?
Cost of manufacture?
Are they vandal proof?
Cost of installation?
Ongoing maintenance and replacement?
Update rules of road
Update driving theory test
Update driving test
A train is delayed and this is national news?? LOL!
@Kieran Conroy:
The journal is a web APP so technically this is global news as opposed to national
“We could be lifted, lifted, lifted. Oh, we could be lifted…” (Lighthouse Family.)
…sighed the bridge.
It really is ridiculous the amount of times the trains are delayed due to bridge strike. I would have thought every truck driver should be well aware of height restrictions on their route. I had something pointed out to me recently though which I never really noticed. In a lot of cases by the time you see the height of the bridge it is too late. After it was pointed out to me I kept an eye open as well and did notice that in some cases you will only see the height of the bridge ON the actual bridge but not before and then there is no way around. We do have a hell of a lot of bridges and I cannot understand why there is no driving app out there which truck drivers can use to calculate the route and which takes into account low bridges and roads with weight restrictions
@sue: bridge strike…train strike… what’s the difference?
I interviewed one of the chiefs in the NRA many year ago as part of a Uni dissertation that I was doing for on bridge management in Ireland, and One of the issue here is that nobody ( Gov depts) wants to manage these existing Bridges because they don’t have the budget to do so. Also there is a debate on who should manage the bridge, whether it is Irish Rail, Local Council or NRA or Waterways Ireland. Political debates as usual.
Use tunnel safety technology
have your say