Two candidates in next year’s parliamentary and municipal elections in Cameroon said suspected separatists set fire to their homes in ongoing violence before the voting scheduled for February.

Joseph Mbah Ndam, the vice speaker of the lower house of parliament and a member of the main opposition Social Democratic Front, and Njong Donatus Fonyuy, the mayor of Kumbo Urban Council, said their homes were set ablaze by suspected separatists.

The insurgency in the nation’s two Anglophone regions in the north- and southwest, has led to the deaths of an estimated 2,000 people and many Cameroonians from the English-speaking community have called for federalism or secession from the French-speaking majority.

Source: Bloomberg