Cameroon Military Tribunal Sentences 4 Separatists To Death Over Killing Of School Children

A military tribunal in the Southwest regional capital of Buea in English-speaking Cameroon has sentenced four separatist fighters to death for the massacre of school children in Kumba on Oct. 24, 2020.

The tribunal handed the verdict on Tuesday, Sept. 7.

The accused persons were charged with terrorism, hostility to the motherland, secession, insurrection, murder, and the illegal possession of arms. 

The four individuals whose identities have been kept secret by the military, along with five other colleagues suspected to be Anglophone separatist fighters, raided the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba on Oct. 24 last year, killing seven children.

“Using machetes and firearms, the nine individuals blew off the heads of some of the children and hacked some to death,” an eyewitness had told a crowd that rushed to the school after the massacre on that fateful day.

“It was the most horrible scene I have ever witnessed in my 70 years on this earth.”   The nine attackers came to the school on three motor bikes. The seven children murdered were aged between 12 and 14 years. Thirteen other children received machete and gunfire wounds but luckily survived.

The killing was condemned both nationally and internationally with unanimous calls for a thorough investigation of the incident and adequate punishment meted out on those responsible.

The Cameroon government launched an investigation to track down those responsible and  announced that its security operatives had neutralised some of the killers and arrested the four who were sentenced to death on Tuesday.