YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — Cameroon says it has launched a manhunt for armed separatists who chopped off the fingers of four workers on a rubber plantation in the country's restive English-speaking southwest.

The attack is the second of its kind in less than a week by the militants, who said the victims had defied instructions not to work on the rubber plantations.

David Epie, a 43-year-old worker at a rubber plantation, says armed men attacked him and three of his co-workers on Thursday evening.

Conflicts began in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon in 2016 when teachers and lawyers complained of discrimination by the French-speaking majority in education and the justice system. The government responded with a crackdown and separatists took over with violence.