YAOUNDE (Reuters) -- More than 80 people, mostly children, were kidnapped from a school in the city of Bamenda in western Cameroon early Monday, government and military sources said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction in the English-speaking region where separatists are fighting to form a breakaway state.
The separatists have imposed curfews and closed down schools as part of their protest against President Paul Biya's French-speaking government.
"In total 81 people were kidnapped including the principal. They were taken to the bush," a military source told Reuters.
A government spokesman said it was keeping track of an event but that it could not comment further.
The separatist movement gathered pace in 2017 after a government crackdown on peaceful demonstrations. Many people have fled Bamenda and other centers to seek refuge in more peaceful Francophone regions.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said on Monday its first domestically built nuclear-powered submarine had recently completed a "deterrence patrol”, giving it the capability to fire nuclear weapons from land, air and sea in the event of any "misadventure” by enemies.
With nuclear-armed China to its north and nuclear-armed Pakistan to its west - both of which India has fought wars with - India’s nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, said the INS Arihant was a "fitting response to those who indulge in nuclear blackmail”. He did not elaborate.
Though India’s relations with China are warming, particularly in the area of trade, ties with Pakistan have nosedived under Modi, who has adopted a more assertive strategy towards the arch rival.
Modi said a successful month-long patrol by Arihant, which was commissioned in 2016, had completed India's goal of having the capacity to deliver nuclear warheads with aircraft, missiles and submarines, 20 years after conducting its first nuclear tests here

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COLOMBO (AP) -- Thousands of Sri Lankans are marching in support of a new government under the country's former strongman.
The rally near Parliament Monday comes amid a deepening political crisis sparked by President Maithripala Siriena's move to oust Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, replace him with ex-leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, and suspend Parliament.
Supporters at the rally chanted "Whose power is this? Mahinda's power!"
Wickremesinghe has refused to vacate his official residence claiming he is the lawful prime minister while thousands of his supporters keep vigil.
Critics say the suspension of Parliament was meant to give Rajapaksa time to gather enough support to survive a no-confidence vote when lawmakers reconvene Nov. 14.

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The U.S.-China trade war is the "most stupid thing in this world,” Jack Ma, the chief of Asia’s most valuable public company, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, said on Monday.
The two countries have set tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s goods and U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on the remainder of China’s $500 billion-plus exports to the United States if the trade dispute cannot be resolved.
The U.S. trade deficit with China, which Trump has blamed for a variety of economic ills, has helped create jobs in the U.S. and without it the country would have big problems, Ma added.
China’s shift to an import model is "going to be a huge pain for a lot of businesses, but it’s also going to make a good opportunity for a lot of consumers,” he said.
Ma also said the government should not worry about innovation, which it should back even if it threatened old, vested interests.
"My view is, ‘Don’t worry about technology’,” Ma added. "The people who worry about technology are first, older people, second, government and third, successful people; they hate it and worry about it. I never see young people worry about technology.”

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GLASGOW (AFP) -- Skin cancer deaths among men have soared in wealthy nations since 1985, with mortality rates among women rising more slowly or even declining, researchers told a medical conference in Glasgow.
Reasons for the discrepancy between sexes are unclear but evidence suggests men are "less likely to protect themselves from the sun" or heed public health warnings, lead researcher Dorothy Yang, a doctor at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust in London, told AFP.
More than 90 percent of melanoma cancers are caused by skin cell damage from exposure to the sun or other sources of ultraviolet (UV) radiation such as tanning beds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
In eight of 18 countries examined, men's skin cancer death rates increased over three decades by at least 50 percent.
In two nations -- Ireland and Croatia -- it roughly doubled.
More than 90 percent of melanoma cancers are caused by skin cell damage from exposure to the sun or other sources of ultraviolet radiation such as tanning beds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
Also seeing a sharp jump were Spain and Britain (70 percent), The Netherlands (60 percent), as well as France and Belgium (50 percent).
In the United States, which was not included in the study, male melanoma mortality went up by about 25 percent, according to CDC statistics.