Although the exact circumstances surrounding their deaths were not immediately clear, at least twelve people were killed in one of Cameroon’s Anglophone regions when separatists clashed with soldiers on Saturday.

Reports say the incident which happened in the town of Menka in Cameroon’s Northwest Region is one of the deadliest since armed secessionists from the English-speaking minority launched an insurrection last year against the predominantly Francophone central government.

According to Agbor Balla Nkongho, a local human rights lawyer and activist, at least 34 bodies were found on Friday in Menka while another anonymous source who visited the town on Saturday said she saw a total of 29 rotting bodies, including three outside a school, riddled with gunshot wounds. She said some were women and others boys as young as 13.

Confirming the incident, Cameroon’s Army spokesman, Colonel Didier Badjeck said in a statement available to local media that government troops surrounded a hotel in Menka on Friday morning after they were tipped off to the presence of separatist rebels.

Colonel Badjeck said a long firefight consequently ensued and ‘several terrorists were neutralized’. He however did not provide further details.

Armed conflict erupted last year in Cameroon’s Anglophone Northwest and Southwest Regions after the government violently repressed peaceful protests that begun in 2016 against perceived marginalization of English speakers.

Scores of people have been killed since late last year – including more than 20 soldiers and police ambushed by the separatists – and tens of thousands of refugees have fled to neighbouring countries like Nigeria.