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Cameroon Arrests Main Opposition Leader Following Protests

Cameroon Arrests Main Opposition Leader Following Protests

(Bloomberg) -- Cameroon police arrested the leader of the largest opposition party, Maurice Kamto, and took another injured activist from hospital following a protest last weekend against the government’s alleged refusal to solve the Anglophone crisis in the central African nation.

Cameroon Arrests Main Opposition Leader Following Protests

Kamto’s Cameroon Renaissance Movement organized demonstrations in four cities to demand a resolution to a separatist insurgency in the nation’s two English-speaking regions and to protest the government’s failure to complete accommodation and stadiums for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament. The Confederation of African Football stripped Cameroon of its right to host the body’s flagship tournament because of building delays that the opposition says were caused by embezzlement of loans.

Kamto was detained when police burst into the house of an aide late Monday in the port city of Douala, lawyer Christopher Ndong said by phone. Celestin Djamen, who was shot in the leg during the protest, was also arrested, as well as an estimated 100 other opposition supporters, he said.

Kamto came in second in presidential elections last year, after Presidential Paul Biya, who’s been in power for 37 years.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pius Lukong in Yaounde at plukong@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.net, Pauline Bax, Helen Nyambura

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