Eight people were killed and several others injured on Saturday in Ekona, a locality in Southwest, one of the two troubled English-speaking regions of Cameroon, according to local sources.

"I personally saw over eight corpses, mostly men and a woman. They were lying in the bush. All of them were shot at close range," a local resident who asked not to be named told Xinhua Saturday.

There were conflicting reports of the identity of the killed. Armed separatists claimed that all those were civilians shot by government forces, but the army said they were separatists killed in a counter-attack.

"The army received intel (intelligence) of the presence of several terrorists (separatists) in the locality and ambushed them on their way to attack a village. They opened fire the moment they discovered our position and we retaliated. About 10 of them were neutralized and others escaped with serious injuries," an army officer who preferred not to be named told Xinhua.

Since November 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatist forces who want the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest to secede from the largely French-speaking nation and form a new country called "Ambazonia".