Kenyan priest shot dead in Cameroon

A Kenyan priest was reportedly shot dead in Kembong, Cameroon on Thursday. [Courtesy]

A Kenyan priest was killed in francophone Cameroon's volatile English-speaking Southwest region where violence has surged after separatists declared an independent state, church sources told AFP on Thursday.

Cameroon’s 85-year-old President Paul Biya was recently sworn in for a seventh term in office.

Biya has promised to pursue policies of decentralisation to address “frustrations and aspirations” in English-speaking regions that want to secede from the Central African state.

"A Kenyan priest was shot dead in Kembong yesterday," one source said.

"There was no fighting, he was in the... church in Kembong when he was killed," another official said in Buea, capital of the Southwest.

The church suggested the priest may have been killed by the military.