BY CYNTHIA BIH
The protracted crisis in the North West and South West regions, which escalated into an armedconflict since 2017 with the Ambazonian or separatist fighters on one side against the defence and security, has in recent years, taken a new turn.
Today, innocent civilians continue to be victims of atrocities perpetrated by the Ambazonia fighters on the one side, and bloody measures by Government forces against those they think have an affiliation with separatists or simply sympathise with the Anglophone cause.
Defence and security forces have been arresting, without due process, pro-independence Anglophone activists and anyone suspected of having any sympathy to the Anglophone cause. The Separatist groups have been agitating for an independent state made up of the two English-speaking regions, which they call Ambazonia.
Several human rights and news organisations believe that the majority of those arrested in connection to the Anglophone separatists’ cause have either died in detention as a result of torture or extreme inhuman conditions. Many are still in detention today; the likes of the Nera Ten separatist leaders, arrested in Nigeria and brought to Cameroon, amongst them, the Ambazonian leader, Sesseko Ayuk Tabe, are currently serving life sentences at the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaounde.
For fear of the arrests and killings, many have fled to other relatively safe parts of the country while thousands have escaped Cameroon to neighbouring countries like Nigeria or to the USA and other Western countries where they are currently living as refugees.
The US President, Joe Biden had in April 2022, granted over 12,000 Cameroonian immigrants in the US Temporary Protected Status, TPS, because of the war in the two regions of Cameroon. This TPS was renewed in October 2023, providing thousands of Cameroonians another 18 months of relief since the war in the two English-speaking Regions of Cameroon is still ongoing. With many still killed, others taken hostage and the rest nursing either their wounds or trying to survive the hardships imposed by the crisis.
And while the conflict continues, the Government forces are committed to their campaign which is focused on locating and destroying with extreme prejudice the fighters to the last man. On the other hand, the separatist fighters have also not been showing any sign of withdrawal from their battle against the Government.
Civilians caught in-between!
And in the middle of this bloody war are the innocent civilians whom the Government, on one hand, blames for not assisting the state security forces with information on the whereabouts of the separatists. In contrast, the separatists, who have been abducting, murdering and abusing civilians themselves have been blaming them for not supporting their cause or for acting as an informants to the Government forces. So, due to this insecure environment, most civilians have fled Cameroon over the years to other countries, in order to be secure.
For women and girls, the story has been more alarming since a majority have been raped either by government forces or by Ambazonian separatist fighters.
Amongst those who unfortunately fell in-between the crossfire of the Ambazonia fighters and the military, as our investigations uncovered recently, is Nsocka Besong Comfort.
Comfort was once, herself, abducted and taken to the forest for several days by suspected separatists where she was allegedly sexually abused. Her father, Nsocka Dieudonne, unfortunately died during the crisis on November 28, 2019.
Comfort’s father, a worker with the National Railway Corporation (CAMRAIL) in Douala, was reportedly shot pointblank in his car by suspected separatist fighters.
As per the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Human Rights Watch and other international agencies, the war has now claimed more than 6,000 lives in which many persons have lost their lives in a similarly gruesome manner.
Caught in-between the crossfire of the Ambazonia fighters and the military
The Nsocka family fell into distraught when Comfort’s father was killed, and threats from both the separatists and Government forces were now being directed towards Mr Nsocka’s wife, a police officer, and their children. Due to the hostile conditions of her day, Mrs Elisabeth Enow Nsocka, who was serving as a Complaints Reception Officer at the Tinto Police Station, Manyu Division of the South West Region, was forced to flee into hiding as well.
The conflict had forced many in the village areas where Mrs Elisabeth Nsocka was working to flee for safety. Comfort’smother, a police officer in war-torn Tinto, was being accused by the separatists of being state security officer for the Cameroon Government which they were fighting against as their enemy.
This, therefore, forced Mrs Elisabeth Nsocka, Comfort, and all to flee their war-torn village. Comfort’s mother reportedly ran off with her granddaughter, Fongwa Dieudonne, who is Confort’s daughter.
This reporter found out that Comfort abandoned the daughter with her mother and also had to leave Cameroon after she and one of the sisters could no longer bear the pains after having been kidnapped by the separatists and subjected to sexual abuse.
As this reporter gathered, Comfort, like thousands of other Cameroonians fled the country after a lucky escape for further studies in Europe.
Pleas for dialogue rebuffed
Various governments including Canada and Switzerland, and some local citizens in Cameroon, have continuously called for an inclusive dialogue by the Cameroon Government. But the Government maintains that it cannot negotiate with the separatists who it accuses of being terrorists.
The crisis began in November 2016 when teachers and lawyers protested the marginalisation of Anglophones and the need for reforms in the educational system. The government responded with a heavy hand that erupted into an outright civil war by 2017. Until date, the war is still raging.
So as for the two English-speaking regions, the situation is still very unsafe for Cameroonians who fled to return.
The US Government as well, in the same line of thought, renewed the Temporary Protected Status for well over 12,000 Cameroonians in 2023. The TPS was first granted to fleeing Cameroonians who got to the US back in April, 2022, owing to the continuing insecurity in the two Anglophone regions.
Human Rights Watch 2024 World Report titled: “Cameroon Events of 2023” states clearly that: “Continued clashes between armed groups and Government forces across Cameroon’s Anglophone and Far North Regions had a devastating impact on civilians, with reports of unlawful killings, abductions, and raids on villages rising in the second half of the year.”
The Report went on to state: “Civilians in the Anglophone regions are still subjected to abuses by various parties to the ongoing crisis, including sexual and gender based violence”.
The North West and South West remain in crisis and unsafe for anyone to return home because the killings and abductions are still near-weekly or monthly occurrences.