(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Officials have disputed a human rights group report that at least 100 people were killed by security forces during anti-government protests in Cameroon last weekend.
Those reports put the death toll significantly higher than the previously reported high of 17.
The protests occurred across Cameroon's two English-speaking regions on Sunday as they symbolically declared their 'independence from the rest of the predominantly Francophone country.
Yesterday the government dismissed the figures published by REDHAC, an NGO monitoring human rights abuses in central Africa.
Army spokesman Didier Badjeck told DPA that the government knew of 10 deaths, and disputed figures released this week by Amnesty International recording 17 deaths.
On Tuesday, a REDHAC statement read: 'At least 100 protesters were found dead from bullets fired by the defence and security forces and from tear gas fired in large quantities.
The statement went on to name 38 of the identified victims.
English speakers in the former French colony have long complained that they are treated like second-class citizens, and that the government makes less money available to them.
On October 1, the secessionist movement declared independence although the move had no basis in law and protesters tore down Cameroonian flags and raised the banner of their would-be state, 'Ambazonia.
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