YAOUNDE, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 11 plantation workers were seriously injured and four others abducted Monday night by armed separatists in Tiko, a locality in Cameroon's restive English-speaking region of Southwest, according to local authorities.
Four of the injured workers on a rubber plantation of state-owned Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) were rushed to the hospital early Tuesday with life-threatening wounds.
"They (armed separatists) arrived when the workers were about to sleep and assembled them in the yard and started flogging one after another with machetes. They chopped off the fingers and hands of some of them. And then abducted four men and left for the bush." Lygonga Mbonde, one of the unit managers of CDC told reporters.
Separatist groups had vowed on social media to make the English speaking regions of Cameroon ungovernable. They consider CDC a legitimate target, according to security reports.
The CDC runs banana, palm oil, and rubber plantations in Cameroon's troubled Southwest and Northwest regions. In August last year, the agro-industry said, more than 6,000 of its 20,000 workers had fled sporadic attacks, killings and kidnapping from armed separatists.
Cameroon's English-speaking regions have been hit by a separatist rebellion since 2017.
A national dialogue to end the separatist conflict was held in the country in early October and recommended that a special status should be granted to the two regions.
