OCHA condemns killing of school children in Cameroon — Soldiers patrol in Bafut, after the roof of a school’s dormitory was set to fire overnight, on November 15, 2017, in the northwest English-speaking region of Cameroon.
Authorities in Cameroon have imposed a night-time curfew on November 8, 2017 and ordered the closure of shops and public places in the main city in a region rocked by unrest among the country’s anglophone minority. Four makeshift bombs exploded overnight on November 12, a week after four soldiers were killed in the two administrative areas where most of Cameroon’s anglophone minority live. Their deaths have been blamed by the authorities on “terrorists” — anglophones campaigning for the two English-speaking areas, the Northwest and Southwest Regions, to secede from Cameroon. / AFP PHOTO / – (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images)

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Saturday evening strongly condemned the killing of school children in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking region of Southwest.

“Violence against schools and school children is not acceptable under any circumstances, and can constitute a crime against humanity if proven in a court of law,” Matthias Naab, humanitarian coordinator in Cameroon, said in a statement issued in the capital Yaounde Saturday evening.

Early Saturday, students were studying in a classroom at the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba of Southwest region, when gunmen invaded and opened fire. According to OCHA, at least eight children were killed and another 12 wounded.

The gunmen were believed to be armed separatists, active in the region since 2017, according to local authorities.