On Tuesday February 8, 2022, buildings of the Government school Molyko, Buea in the South West region went up in smoke. According to some witnesses, this fire was perpetrated by secessionists in this part of the country plagued by conflict since 2017.
Buildings at the Molyko Public School, Buea in the South West region, were reduced to flames on the night of February 7 to 8, 2022. The act committed was attributed to the alleged separatists who would have left the place of the sinister in the early morning of February 8.
While waiting for more information on this subject, remember that this is not the first time that armed men have targeted a school. On October 24, 2020, they attacked and killed students at a school in Kumba. In November 2021, four students and a teacher had perished under the bullets of the secessionists at the Government Bilingual High School of Ekondo Titi, to name but a few cases.
Schools are a target for armed groups in the North-West and South-West regions. Schools are regularly attacked, teachers or students killed or kidnapped.
“The armed separatists bear full responsibility for these targeted attacks on education, but the response of the Cameroonian government and security forces has been insufficient and is hampered by the numerous counter-insurgency operations carried out in the English-speaking regions“, posed the NGO Human Rights Watch in a report in December 2021.
Human Rights Watch also notes that “ the abduction of at least 268 students and education professionals by armed separatists between January 2017 and August 2021. In the North West region, in just two incidents, one in 2018 and the other in 2019, fighters abducted no fewer than 78 and 170 students from their respective schools. Most of the victims (255) were students“. In addition, “at least 70 schools have been attacked in English-speaking regions since 2017“.