The 170 Cameroonian students and school staff who were kidnapped on Saturday have been freed.
The Bishop of Kumbo has told the BBC that a total of 176 people, mostly students, were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen at Saint Augustin’s College in Kumbo, in the North West region of Cameroon were released on Sunday after negotiations.
This is the largest school kidnapping in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions since separatist unrest began in 2017.
Human Rights Watch has accused rebel groups of being behind the kidnapping but they have not yet commented.
They have said previous abductions were staged by the government to damage their reputation
The gunmen entered the campus of Saint Augustine’s College Nso on Saturday morning and seized 170 students, two security guards, a teacher and three of his children, the Diocesan Director of Communications said in a statement.
Rev Elvis Nsaikila added that the authorities of the boarding school had requested parents and guardians to take their children back home as soon as possible as “the school has closed down”.
The Bishop of Kumbo, Georges Nkuo, confirmed to BBC Afrique that the church officials had negotiated the release of the hostages on the condition that the school would shut.