BY CYNTHIA BIH
As the crisis in the North West and South West regions, which has morphed into an armed conflict, rages on, residents in some localities in the conflict-hit regions have been caught between atrocities committed by Ambazonia separatist fighters and government’s clampdown on suspected separatists and sympathisers of the Anglophone cause with the use of defense and security forces.
The government has tagged members of the outlawed Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, as the brains behind the unrest rocking the North West and South West Regions.
After releasing a list of Anglophone activists in the diaspora, who were targeted for arrest years back, sources say a fresh list of SCNC members and other activists both home and abroad; clamouring for the restoration of the total independence of the former British Southern Cameroons, has been re-established for their arrest. More than a hundred names have reportedly been given to intelligence services.
The list reportedly has alleged SCNC activists in the likes of Florence Sassa Diange, Eyisab Enow Kenneth, and Odilia Anih Bechu. It is said to be making rounds in the hands of the military. The suspects have been placed under military searchlight and declared wanted since they organised several protests in major towns in the North West and South West Regions like, Bamenda, Kumba, Mamfe, Buea, Limbe, Wum, and Mbengwi against the worsening frustration and marginalization, coupled with the unlawful detention and maltreatment of the people of Former British Southern Cameroons. Most of these SCNC activists and members have underground as they have been declared wanted by the Yaoundé regime.
Reports from Mbengwi, Momo Division, one of the restive zones amidst the Anglophone crisis in the North West Region, say Odilia Anih Bechu, a frontline member of the SCNC is currently under security searchlight.
The President of the women’s wing of the Oshie Cultural and Development Association, OCA, whose husband, an SCNC member died in 2005 due to complications he developed after numerous security operatives brutality on him while in detention in Bamenda, has been declared wanted. Her whereabouts has been cloudy since 2014 after she escaped from detention in Bamenda, but she has been listed for arrest recently.
According to sources, Odilia Anih Bechu just like many other SCNC activists, has been a victim of torture, arrest and detention due to her SCNC activism. She is reported to have used her off- license on several occasions to host SCNC meetings and equally organised a conference at the courtyard of the Oshie Community Hall in Mbengwi on the theme “The SCNC and the Role of the Woman”.
THE SUN gathered that all these landed her in security operative’s bad books on several instances from 2013 to 2014 as she was arrested several times, molested, tortured, and detained in very harsh, cruel and inhumane detention conditions, for organising illegal meetings and calling for the boycott of National Day celebrations.
As we went to press, the military, with firm instruction from government, had launched fresh pursuit to have her arrested alongside many others for them to be prosecuted at the Yaounde Military Tribunal on charges of secession, hostility and related offences and her support for the restoration of the Independence of the former British Southern Cameroons.
The military keeps making impromptu checks at her Mbengwi and Bamenda residential areas, just to arrest and prosecute her. Family sources have hinted that they are constantly harassed and molested for them to disclose her whereabouts, which, unfortunately, remains cloudy.
The government has not stopped arresting persons who show sympathy for the SCNC and who take part in activities it organises. Reports say some of these persons have died in detention, or died after being released detention due to torture-related complications or simply just disappeared.