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ConflictsCameroon

Cameroon: Rebel groups spread terror ahead of election

Blaise Eyong
September 11, 2025

Cameroon is preparing for presidential elections in October. But violent separatists in the country's anglophone regions have imposed a near total curfew. They have banned travel, shuttered shops, and forced the closure of schools.

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How can Cameroon hold a presidential election when many children cannot even go to school?

The West African nation is set to elect a president in one month, yet classrooms in English-speaking regions remain closed on the official start of the school year.

Anglophone separatists have ordered the population to stay home and observe a boycott. They have also told people not to travel, open their shops, go to work, or drive.

This total lockdown is nothing new. Every year, armed separatists exert extra pressure at the start of the new school year. Since 2017, they have forced the closure of English- and French-language schools, preventing hundreds of thousands of children from receiving an education. They have also injured, abducted, and killed students and teachers.

DW Correspondent Blaise Eyong met one young woman who barely escaped with her life.