Cameroon arrests soldiers for killing civilians in separatist war

YAOUNDE, April 21 (Reuters) - Authorities in Cameroon said
they have arrested three soldiers for their role in an alleged
deadly attack on civilians in a village in the west of the
country where the military is fighting a separatist insurgency.
Soldiers killed three women and 10 children in the
northwestern Ngarbuh village in February and then tried to cover
up their actions by torching parts of the community, the
government said in a statement on Tuesday.
Several other soldiers involved in the mission will face
disciplinary proceedings, it added.
"After an exchange of fire...the detachment discovered that
three women and 10 children died as a result of their actions.
In panic, the three soldiers...tried to mask the facts by
lighting fires."
Previously, in the immediate aftermath of the February
clashes, the government said that its soldiers were on a
reconnaissance mission in Ngarbuh when they were attacked. The
fighting that followed caused several fuel containers to explode
and set nearby houses ablaze, it said, killing five civilians.
The latest findings, the result of an investigation into the
incident, come amid mounting pressure from the United Nations
and rights groups. The U.N. in February said that 22 people were
killed, 14 of whom were children, based on interviews with
survivors, according to James Nunan, an official with the U.N.
humanitarian coordination agency OCHA. At least 600 people fled,
he said. Human Rights Watch put the toll at 21 and said the soldiers
deliberately carried out the killings, including by burning
people in their homes.
Anglophone rebels in the northwest and southwest regions
have called for a split from the country for decades, but
fighting has escalated since 2017 as support for secession grows
and armed groups appear.
Witnesses of past clashes have told Reuters of army abuses https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-cameroon-separatists-exclusive/exclusive-we-are-in-a-war-cameroon-unrest-confronted-by-army-offensive-idUKKBN1FS1WT,
but the army had denied any wrongdoing.
The fighting, often in remote villages surrounded by cocoa
farms and forests, has been one of the greatest threats to
President Paul Biya's government during his nearly 40 years in
power.
Conflict between Cameroon's army and English-speaking
militias began after the government cracked down violently on
peaceful protests by lawyers and teachers in 2016 who complained
of marginalization by the French-speaking majority.