A police officer has been killed and five teachers abducted after armed men attacked a teacher training centre in Wum, in Cameroon’s restive Northwest Region.
The latest incident occurred on Tuesday morning, according to the regional governor, Adolphe Lele Lafrique, who disclosed the attack in a statement on Wednesday.
Wum is located about 80 kilometres north of Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest Region, one of two predominantly English-speaking areas that have been embroiled in a separatist conflict for nearly a decade.
Lafrique said the armed men infiltrated the teacher training centre before a police officer at the scene attempted to intervene.
The attackers reportedly opened fire on the officer, killing him instantly, before abducting five teachers and taking them to an undisclosed location.
“The armed individuals unleashed a hail of bullets on him, killing him instantly, and took five teachers with them to an unknown location,” the governor said.
He added that security forces had launched a search operation to locate the abducted teachers and apprehend those responsible for the attack.
Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions have experienced persistent violence since 2016, when the government violently suppressed protests by teachers and lawyers.
The protesters had opposed what they described as increasing domination of the education and legal systems by French-speaking authorities.
The crackdown eventually triggered an armed separatist insurgency in 2017, with separatist groups seeking independence for the anglophone regions from the predominantly French-speaking central government in Yaounde.
Since then, civilians have been caught in the conflict, with cases of killings, kidnappings for ransom, extortion and other forms of violence reported across the region.
The United Nations estimates that at least 6,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in 2016.
The crisis has also triggered a major displacement emergency. More than 330,000 people were internally displaced in Cameroon in 2025, while over 100,000 others reportedly crossed into neighbouring Nigeria to seek safety.
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