Cameroon’s president Paul Biya issued a decree taht saying a presidential election will be held on October 7, amidst a worsening security situation in the Southwest and Northwest Anglophone regions.
Paul Biya said, the inhabitants of Buea, the capital of the Southwest region were still confined to their homes for fear of going out after witnessing gunfire in the morning between soldiers and Anglophone separatists.
President Paul Biya, 85, who has been in power for close to 36 years has not announced whether he will run for a seventh re-election, but in May his party said he is their “natural” candidate.
Today, fighting between Cameroonian security forces and armed men claiming to be “restoration forces” of an English-speaking state that had briefly emerged between the two world wars, under British mandate, has disrupted business and livelihoods in the Anglophone regions.
According to the government, more than 80 members of the security forces were killed in the fighting in the Anglophone regions.
The UN says up to 160,000 people have fled their homes as a result of the violence, while the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency says 34,000 have fled to Nigeria.
