“An armed group burst into the Weh bilingual high school on Tuesday and kidnapped five people,” said Roger Kafo, secretary general of the National Union of Secondary Teachers (Snaes).

Armed separatists often target schools, accusing them of teaching in French, and also kill civil servants, including teachers, whom they accuse of “collaborating” with the central government in Yaounde.

A number of students have been kidnapped and later freed.

“At the moment we don’t have any news of the hostages and none has been freed,” Kafo added.

The hostages were the principal, the deputy head and three teachers.

The northwest and southwest regions have been rocked by violence since 2017 when anglophone militants declared independence from the majority French-speaking country.

Yaounde responded with a crackdown.

Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives and forced over 700,000 to flee their homes.