Cameroon’s government said on Sunday that separatist fighters were responsible for the massacre of children in their classrooms in the English-speaking southwest of the country.

While the government recorded six victims of the attack, aged between nine and 12, the United Nations had reported a death toll of eight.

The government also said that 13 children sustained various degrees of injuries during the raid on the bilingual school in the town of Kumba.

Communications Minister Rene Emmanuel Sadi while condemning the attack said, it is “a terrorist act of unbearable cruelty and barbarity”.

He added that it was carried out by “groups of armed secessionist terrorists”.

He explained that around 10 people on three motorbikes burst into the compound of the private Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy and they “coldly opened fire on the pupils who were in the classrooms”.

A statement by the local UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on Saturday, said the assailants had also used machetes.

African Union Commission, Chief Moussa Faki Mahamat equally condemned the “brutal attack” in a statement on Twitter.

Sadi also said that the aim of the attackers had been to stop the return to schools that had been taking place in the Northwest and Southwest provinces, where English-speaking separatists are fighting for independence.

The two English-speaking regions in this mainly francophone country have become the centre of the conflict, with separatists targeting the army and demanding local government offices and schools close.

Rights groups have accused both the separatists and government troops of having killed civilians during the conflict since 2017.

The fighting has claimed the lives of more than 3 000 people and has forced over 700 000 people to flee their homes.