The closed establishments are located in the Adamaoua and Northern regions where unlawfulness has become the order of the day, including hostage-taking in order to ask ransoms to the affected families.
Since parents cannot ensure the security of students and their professors, they have decided to stop sending their children to school “under the approving gaze of the public authorities,” a source close to the Ministry of Basic Education told APA.
“We were tired of paying ransoms all the time for kidnappers to free our children. Despite our complaints, we were forced to leave our children at home,” said an anonymous village chief in the Adamaoua region.
According to non-governmental organizations, the population of the Adamaoua region has spent more than 2 billion CFA francs in the last three years due to livestock theft by bandits and ransom payments.
That is why, a few weeks ago, the Cameroonian government deployed an elite unit of the National Gendarmerie, made up of nearly 500 members, to this part of the country. Their mission is to put an end to the exactions of the roadblockers in order to allow the local population to go about their business.
Since late 2016, northern Cameroon has been going through a security crisis linked mainly to the actions of English-speaking secessionist movements.