Armed men in military fatigues kill 22 in Cameroon village

DOUALA, Cameroon, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Gunmen in military

fatigues and masks have killed 22 people in a village at the

heart of a separatist insurgency in western Cameroon, shooting

women and children and burning others in their homes, the United

Nations said on Monday.

Cameroon's army has since 2017 been fighting

English-speaking militias seeking to form a breakaway state

called Ambazonia amid the cocoa farms and forests of west

Cameroon. As fighting has intensified, so have abuses by both

sides, witnesses and rights groups say.

The fighting is the gravest threat to stability in the oil-

and cocoa-producing country since President Paul Biya took power

nearly 40 years ago.

It was not yet clear who was responsible for Friday's attack

in Ntumbo in the northwest region of Cameroon near the Nigerian

border. In a statement, separatists blamed the army. In its own

the statement, the army denied wrongdoing.

Survivors "were extremely shocked and traumatized. People

just left their houses and left everything behind," said James

Nunan, an official with the U.N. humanitarian coordination

agency OCHA that conducted interviews with witnesses and

survivors.

Nunan said that 14 of the dead were children, some of whom

were under five. At least 600 people fled, he said.

The type of attack, with people being burned alive and shot,

echoes other raids that witnesses told Reuters were committed by

the military. The army has denied involvement in those raids.

The government said on Monday that its soldiers were on a

reconnaissance mission in Ntumbo when they were attacked. The

fighting that followed caused several fuel containers to explode

and set nearby houses ablaze, it said, killing five civilians.

"In light of the methodically and professionally

cross-checked information, it is simply an accident, collateral

damage of the operations to restore security in the region," the

government said in a statement.

The separatists said at least 35 civilians were killed in

what they called a "violation of the human rights of the

Ambazonian people."

Conflict between Cameroon's army and English-speaking

militias began after the government cracked down violently on

peaceful protesters by lawyers and teachers in 2016 complaining

of being marginalised by the French-speaking majority.

Violence spiked again in the run-up to parliamentary

elections on Feb. 9, rights groups said, including the burning

of houses.

Nearly 8,000 Cameroon refugees fled to eastern and southern

Nigeria in the first two weeks of February, the United Nations

refugee agency said, adding to the more than half a million

people who have already left.