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In the children's video, the man who holds the camera returns it at the end
An army search operation is underway in Cameroon to rescue dozens of abductees from a boarding school.
At least 79 students and three others were arrested Monday in Bamenda, capital of the North West region, said a government official at the BBC.
The government and the English-speaking separatists have accused each other of orchestrating the kidnapping.
The northwestern and southwestern regions of Cameroon have been hit by a secessionist rebellion in recent years.
Regional Governor Adolphe Lele Africa Deben Tchoffo accused the separatist militias of being responsible for this kidnapping.
But English-speaking separatists accuse the government of staging the kidnapping, with the goal of discrediting their movement.
- Africa Live: more information about this and other African stories
- The English-speaking rebels of Cameroon
What do we know up here?
The militias, who called for the independence of the two English-speaking regions, called for a boycott of the school.
But no group said they had kidnapped the students and the director of Bamenda's Presbyterian Secondary School, which houses students aged 10 to 14 years.
A video of some of the children, allegedly filmed by one of the kidnappers, is being shared on social networks.
The students, all boys and huddled in a tiny room, look nervous when the person holding the camera orders them to say their name and where they come from.
They also repeat the sentence: "I was taken away from school last night by the Amba boys, I do not know where I am."
Amba is the abbreviation of Ambazonia, name of the new country that the separatists want to create.
One student, who managed to avoid being captured by hiding under a bed, told the BBC that the events unfolded quickly when the kidnappers entered the school.
"One of my friends, they beat him mercilessly .. All I could think of was staying quiet.They threatened to shoot at someone … all the big boys that they gathered and the little ones they left behind. "
A school teacher described what she saw when she entered the principal's office after students were taken from different dormitories.
"The soldiers came in and went to the main house where we realized that her door had been beaten and the glasses were still there on the floor," she told the BBC.
What did the kidnappers say?
The very respectful Reverend Fonki Samuel Forba, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, told the BBC that he had spoken to the kidnappers.
"They do not want ransom, all they want is for us to close the schools and we promised to close the schools," he told the BBC.
"We hope and pray that they will release children and teachers," he added.
This is not the first time that students are kidnapped in the region, known to be a bastion of separatist fighters, reports Ngala Killian Chimtom, of the BBC.
On October 19, five students from Atiela bilingual high school were taken away by unidentified gunmen. We still do not know where they are.
The separatists say that the Cameroonian school system removes the Anglophone system that the North West and South West regions inherited from the British.
How did the Anglophone crisis begin?
The militias, who want to create Ambazonia, began to emerge in 2017 after a massive crackdown by security forces led by lawyers and teachers against the government's alleged failure to sufficiently recognize the English legal and educational systems of the North. Where is. and southwest.
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The government has been accused of strongly supporting people trained in the French legal and educational tradition to occupy key positions and marginalize the English-speaking minority in Cameroon, which represents about 20% of the population.
This is not a new grievance. Many Anglophones have long complained that their regions have been neglected and excluded from power since the 1972 referendum that saw Cameroon abandon its federal form to become a unitary state.
Some, including the International Crisis Group, argue for a return to the previously two-state federal system in Cameroon: one anglophone, the other francophone.
President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982, was recently re-elected for a seventh term with over 70% of the vote.
Opposition parties allege that the vote was rigged, but legal attempts to reverse the result failed.
The president was sworn in on Tuesday, which was declared a national holiday.
Cameroon – still divided by colonial lines
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Alamy
The borders of Africa have been "cut off" by the colonial powers
- Colonized by Germany in 1884
- British and French troops force Germans to leave in 1916
- Cameroon is divided three years later – 80% go to the French and 20% to the British
- Cameroon led by the French became independent in 1960
- After a referendum, Southern (British) Cameroon joins Cameroon, while Northern Cameroon joins Anglophone Nigeria
Read more: chronology of Cameroon
