Representational Image
As many as 79 school students were kidnapped on Monday in an English-speaking region of Cameroon where separatists are fighting an armed campaign for independence, news agency AFP reported.
Apart from the students, their principal, a teacher and a driver were too abducted.
According to a government source, search for the hostages have been launched.
"The search for the hostages has been launched -- every man has been called in," the government source told AFP, speaking after a crisis meeting.
According to the agency, the students 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.
