Three Cameroonian soldiers have been charged with murder over killings in the country's North-West region in February, the AFP news agency reports.

After the authorities initially denied army involvement in the killing of 13 civilians, including 10 children, in Ntumbo, the presidency admitted in April that three soldiers along with members of a vigilante group had stormed a separatist rebel base.

It suggested the deaths were accidental but soldiers tried to cover them up.

Cameroon's government has been fighting separatists in the region for three years.

"The three Cameroonian soldiers have been placed in provisional detention in Yaounde military prison," AFP quotes army spokesman Colonel Cyrille Atonfack Guemo as saying.