This archive report was first published on 30 June 2019.
Cameroon's opposition leader, John Fru Ndi, was released by his captors on Saturday, June 29, 2019, after being abducted by unidentified gunmen in the country's restive Anglophone region a day earlier.
Separatist rebels have been battling government forces for nearly two years over perceived marginalization of English speakers by the central African country's Francophone-dominated government.
Fru Ndi, who heads the Social Democratic Front (SDF) and finished runner-up to President Paul Biya in the 2011 election, was taken from his home in the city of Bamenda on Friday, June 28, 2019, the second time in two months he had been kidnapped.
The SDF blamed his previous abduction in April 2019, which lasted a few hours, on Anglophone secessionist rebels. The SDF has criticized Biya, who has served as president since 1982, for his handling of the crisis, but has not endorsed separatist demands for an independent English-speaking state.
The United Nations estimates the conflict has killed about 1,800 people and displaced over 500,000 since 2017.
According to Jean Robert Wafo, an SDF official, Fru Ndi was released on Saturday evening, but no details were provided about who had taken him or where he had been held.
