A senior Cameroon government administrator, a mayor and five others were on Wednesday in the country’s restive southwest killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) in a separatist ambush, the region’s governor said.
The region is one of two English-speaking regions in the Central African nation, where insurgents are seeking to form a breakaway state called Ambazonia.
The administrator is the highest government official to be killed so far in the conflict that has claimed over 3,000 lives and displaced nearly one million since the fighting began in 2017.
Bernard Okalia Bilai, Governor of the South West Region, said the Sub-prefect of Ekondo Titi was on a tour of his jurisdiction when his convoy hit an IED, and was then attacked by separatist fighters.
“It was a terrorist attack. It was an ambush,” Bilai told journalists, adding that the situation was under control.
Cho Ayaba, leader of the Ambazonian Defence Force, one of the main English-speaking separatist groups on Twitter said it carried out the attack.
