Seventy-nine school students were kidnapped on Monday in an English-speaking region of Cameroon where separatists are fighting an armed campaign for independence, a government source said.
The students were abducted along with their principal, a teacher and a driver, the official said, as a source at the school confirmed the kidnapping of the pupils.
They were enrolled at the Presbyterian Secondary School in Bamenda, capital of Cameroon's Northwest Region -- one of two regions hit by attacks by anglophone militants that have met with a brutal crackdown by the authorities.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction.
A government spokesman said it was keeping track of an event but that it could not comment further.
The separatist movement gathered pace in 2017 after a government crackdown on peaceful demonstrations. Many people have fled Bamenda and other centres to seek refuge in more peaceful Francophone regions.
