A homemade bomb thrown through the roof of a university lecture hall wounded 11 students on Wednesday, the vice chancellor said, in an English-speaking region of Cameroon in the grip of a bloody separatist conflict.

University of Buea vice-chancellor Horace Ngomo Manga said “the device fell to the ground and exploded.”

One boy and 10 girls were wounded, he told state radio CRTV, adding that all were in a stable condition.

He did not elaborate on the nature of the bomb or who might have thrown it.

Buea is the capital of Cameroon’s Southwest region. Both the Southwest and Northwest regions are mainly English-speaking in the otherwise predominantly French-speaking central African country.

A decades-long campaign by militants to redress perceived discrimination at the hands of the francophone majority flared into a declaration of independence on October 1, 2017, sparking a crackdown by security forces.

The conflict has claimed more than 3,500 lives and forced 700,000 people to flee their homes, according to NGO estimates that have not been updated in more than a year despite an escalation in violence in recent months.

The United Nations and international organizations regularly denounce abuses and crimes committed against civilians by both sides.

Wednesday’s bombing has not been claimed, but the anglophone separatists have regularly attacked schools and universities that they accuse of favoring French-language education.

The separatists have also recently ramped up attacks on the country’s armed forces using improvised explosive devices.

In September, a Buea court sentenced four men to death over the killing of seven schoolchildren a year earlier, however Human Rights Watch called the trial a sham.

Source: Voice of America