Will the exact number of Anglophones who have died, or gone missing since the Anglophone crisis break out in 2016 ever be known.
When on the 17th of January 2017 English speaking Cameroon lawyers, activists and teachers protested peacefully against the exactions of the regime of President Biya, they were met with brutality, arbitrary killing from the Cameroon government through its military and/or forces of law and order.
Since then hell broke loose in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. Each passing week or month ejects a fresh name on the ever-growing list of those who have gone missing. Men, women, girls, boys even children. The list is inexhaustible. The most recent missing case brought to the attention of The SUN newspaper is Akwo Glen Eyong.
Akwo Glen was born in Buea and is about 27 years old now. Akwo Glen was caught in the web of sympathy with the struggle. Having understood the genuine protest of the English Speaking lawyers and teachers , he was forced to sympathize with the struggle for a political change in the country and to put an end to marginalization of the Anglophone population.
He had been member of the SCNC (Southern Cameroons National Council)since2015 in the Mamfe County, where he operated in the Youth Wing in the position of Youth Coordinator.
Akwo first face-to-face encounter with the military was on October 01, 2022 while holding a meeting in Mamfe in a house in Satom quarters while they were holding a meeting. They however escaped through the windows. Unfortunately, in the course of their escape, Akwo and one of the youths fell into the hands of the French-speaking military. They were dragged and punched on the faces, taken to a green-colored parked gendarmerie van with no number plate. They were taken to the Mamfe Gendarmerie Brigade. Upon arrival at the brigade- Mamfe, they were detained in separate cells. Akwo’s legs were chained as well as his hands and forced to lie down with his head faced down on a wet and filthy floor in the detention room. He underwent serious torture.
His mother would then seek the legal services of one Lawyer for his release to no avail. He was expecting his lawyer to file a case for his release when on Thursday October 06th 2022, he was taken out of the torture room in a semi-conscious state.
He woke up to realise he was in a Government hospital bed in the Mamfe general hospital with infusions on his hand/drip with a Uniform Officer seated and watching over him. On Sunday October 9, 2022,he was smuggled out of the hospital. Since then Akwo Glen has gone into hiding.
Like Akwo, Nkodem Mathiews Tentinu is also missing. Many Anglophone families are hurting and are in serious pain of not knowing where their sons, daughters, fathers and mothers are.