Reuters AlertNet Lite - Clashes over land kill five in northwest Cameroon

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Clashes over land kill five in northwest Cameroon

09 May 2007 12:15:40 GMT
Source: Reuters

YAOUNDE, May 9 (Reuters) - Villagers armed with home-made guns, machetes and sticks killed five people and destroyed 60 homes in northwest Cameroon during days of clashes between rival communities over farm land, a local official said on Wednesday.

The villages of Oku and Mbessa have been locked in a battle over land rights for decades, but the latest violence came months after local authorities tried to establish a new boundary between them in a bid to end the conflict.

"The latest dispute started on Saturday when Oku people attacked the Mbessa people while they were doing community work, maintaining a road," an aide to the governor of the North-West province said, asking not to be named.

"All five people killed were from Oku. Security reports from the area say the confrontation was quite fierce and bloody."

Battles over land and natural resources, especially at the start of the farming season, are a regular feature of life in rural Cameroon, where many people are subsistence farmers.

Villagers in the North-West province burned down some 300 homes and forced thousands of people to flee a rival settlement in March.

Two years ago, angry villagers in the province beat their chief to death and burned his corpse after they accused him of selling farmland to wealthy cattle breeders. They then stoned to death the policeman who came to arrest the main suspect.

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Last updated:Wed May 9 12:17:40 2007