Danger hovers around the CAN. Several people were injured on Wednesday in exchanges of fire between soldiers and armed men in the city of Buea, west of Cameroon, which is home to teams competing for the CAN, the mayor of AFP told AFP on Thursday. the locality.
“There was an exchange of fire in Buea yesterday and several people were injured”, said David Mafani Namange, referring to “Sporadic incidents”. “The security forces quickly intervened and an investigation is underway to determine who is responsible”, he continued.
An attack not yet claimed
The attack has not yet been claimed. Secessionist armed groups, which demand the independence of two western regions inhabited mainly by the English-speaking minority of Cameroon, had threatened before the opening of the CAN on Sunday to disrupt the course of the competition. Some armed groups had sent threatening letters to teams scheduled to play their matches in Limbé, a seaside resort in the southwest of the country, and to train in Buea.
For five years, following the repression of peaceful demonstrations accusing the central power and the French-speaking majority of the country of ostracism towards Anglophones, armed separatists and soldiers have clashed in a deadly conflict that caused several thousand deaths and hundreds. thousands of displaced since early 2017 according to the UN and humanitarian workers.
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