An opposition senator was shot and killed in western Cameroon, where Anglophone separatists have carried out a bloody insurgency against the state, his party and an official said.
Lawmaker Henry Kemende, whose body was found Wednesday, “was killed (overnight) by unidentified armed robbers,” confirmed an official from the local Communications Ministry on condition of anonymity.
He had been a lawyer and legislator for the Social Democratic Front (SDF), one of the main opposition parties in Cameroon.
The assassination occurred in Bamenda, a major city in the country’s northwest region that, along with the southwest, has seen a wave of insurgent violence by members of the region’s Anglophone minority against predominantly Francophone security forces.
“We recovered his body, his chest riddled with bullets,” SDF vice president Joshua Osih confirmed to AFP.
The vehicle in which the victim was traveling at the time of the attack had “disappeared,” he added.
A Senate official who requested anonymity confirmed the information to AFP.
No one had come forward to claim the murder as of Wednesday afternoon.
“We assume they are the ‘Ambazonians,’” suggested Osih, referring to armed Anglophone insurgent groups.
Cameroon has been torn apart by violence since October 2017, when militants declared an independent state in the northwest and southwest, home to the majority of the Anglophone minority in the largely Francophone country.
Both separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the clashes, which have killed more than 3,000 people and forced more than 700,000 to flee their homes.
Armed groups are regularly accused of kidnapping, killing or wounding civilians whom they accuse of “collaborating” with the Cameroonian authorities.
Several SDF leaders have been attacked in the past, including John Fru Ndi, the party chairman.
Fru Ndi has come out several times against President Paul Biya, 88, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for nearly 40 years.
Osih said that separatist elements oppose the SDF because it is a predominantly English-speaking party that participates in the political process and opposes the partition of Cameroon.
It is the third largest party in the national assembly, the lower house which, like the Senate, is dominated by the DPCR Biya party.
NGOs and the UN accuse Biya of suppressing dissent in English-speaking areas and cracking down on political opponents.