The school year in Cameroon starts Monday with hundreds of schools in the troubled western regions reopening their doors for the first time in three to five years. Anglophone separatists previously used threats to keep the schools closed, but some rebels, for the first time, are saying they should be spared from the conflict.

Cameroon’s government said Monday that several hundred schools reopened in its restive English speaking North West and South West regions.

Most schools in the regions have been shut down for three to five years, since the start of a separatist conflict to carve out an English-speaking state from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority.

Ngida Lawrence Che is the most senior government official in Nkambe, a western district. He says at least half a dozen schools that were sealed by separatists in the 17 villages that make up Nkambe have reopened.

Source: voice of America