BY LUSY LIMA
The North West and South West Regions of Cameroon have remained restive since 2017 following what is now known as the Anglophone crisis. The crisis started with the demands from Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers urging the Government to shun the marginalisation of Anglophone Cameroon by La Republique du Cameroun for a better Cameroon. It has metamorphosed into an arm conflict, with the emergence of Separatist fighters commonly known as ” Amba Boys”, who have taken up arms against the state in demand for the independence of former British Southern Cameroon.
This move by the Separatist fighters, met serious reprisals from government forces, and the death toll has been on the increase especially from the innocent civilian population, with Businessmen, medical professionals, politicians, students and a cross section of individuals of different walks of life.
Houses and villages have been burnt, while suspected individuals linked to Separatist fighters and activists of the Anglophone course have seen themselves arrested, molested and tortured by government forces, with some detained in very horrible inhumane detention conditions. Others have gone underground to an unknown destination and are currently under security searchlight as the Government has openly declared them wanted, and will have them persecuted and prosecuted any time they are arrested.
Latest statistics from national and international rights bodies indicate that over 4000 civilians’ have been killed with about 800,000 displaced, beside many living horrible lives in neighbouring Nigeria due to the arm conflict.
One of such dreadful incidents was on February 14, 2020, when the military, with the assistance of about 30 armed Fulani militiamen, stormed the village of Ngarbuh, in the North West Region, and killed, 21 civilians’, including 13 children and a pregnant woman. This sad incident received widespread condemnation across the board including the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Union, the USA, UK, France, and the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Despite documented compelling evidence published by New York Times Journal, and corroborated by Human Rights Watch accusing the Cameroon Military for the massacre, the government formally denied her responsibility for the killings in Ngarbuh but later admitted after several criticisms and independent investigations.
All these have made life in the two restive regions unsafe. Amidst all these, the Government is said to have launched a fresh hunt to bring to book all those suspected to be linked to or facilitating the activities of separatist fighters both at home or abroad.
Ekondo Titi in tears
As the crisis rages on, the population of Bekora Barombi, a locality in Ekondo- Titi Sub Division, Ndian Division, South West Region of Cameroon, are still to come to terms with the untimely death of 67 – year-old Monica Esengoe, in a local hospital, following a military brutality on her and other locals on August 29, 2021.
Reports say Monica who succeeded to relocate to a suburb around Buea, was arrested during a raid and while in detention, it was discovered that she was from Bekora village and had escaped when the village was raided after the killing of some soliders there. After several days in detention under inhumane conditions and torture, locals disclosed that she fell seriously sick and for fear that she could die in detention, they moved her to a local hospital where she died.
It should be recalled that Monica Esengoe’s two sons Ival Rawlings Ngabe and Enone Ngabe Kingsley’s where about remain cloudy since September 2018 following a military raid in Bekora Barombi, considered a strong hold of Separatist fighters.
The military raid according to reports resulted from the killing of some military personnel by separatist fighters. As a result, several youths and older men and women were arrested, with some killed. Houses were razed to the ground and many alongside Monica and her two sons; Rawlings and Kingsley escaped to the bush for safety.
As we went to Press, mourners at the funeral of Monica. Esengoe regretted the fact that, Monica was interred without Rawlings and Kingsley, who have not been seen since September 2018. Like several other villagers, denizens are still uncertain of the where about of these two siblings.
It should be noted that those arrested in connection with the Anglophone crisis, are tried in the military tribunal under the terrorism law, with death penalty as maximum sentence. The case of the Ambazonia Leaders that is Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, Barrister Eyambe Elias Ebai, Tassang Wilfred and 5 others, and many other Anglophones is still fresh. Recently, the military tribunal in Buea sentenced some Anglophones linked to the killing of some pupils of the Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy, Kumba in October 2020 to death, and Ival and Kinsley might obviously face the same fate if ever found or arrested by the security forces of Cameroon.