The civilians were driving along the Ndu-Foumban road on early Monday when separatist fighters ambushed them, a security source in the region said, Xinhua news agency reported.

"They (the civilians) gave the soldier a lift. Along the way, the separatists who were hiding in the bush opened fire on their car, killing three people and injuring two others," the source told Xinhua.

Additional troops have been deployed to the road where attacks have become recurrent.

A separatist insurgency has been going on in Cameroon's two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest since 2017.

Armed separatists want to secede from the largely French-speaking Cameroon and create an independent nation in the English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest.