BY KUBU EVELYN
Since the onset of the armed conflict in 2017 between the military and the armed Separartist fighters, commonly referred to as “Amba” fighters, in the two English-speaking regions of the country, there has been an upsurge of the most grievous human rights abuses.
There has been heightened level of unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests, detentions, and torture allegedly committed by the military. Meanwhile, separatist fighters are also accused of been perpetrating acts of killings, torture, kidnappings for ransom, among others. These have forced many, especially young people from the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon, to flee the country.
Amnesty International reported in its 2024 Report on Cameroon that: “In the two Anglophone regions, real or suspected armed separatists continued to carry out murders, hostage takings for ransom and extortion, targeting of defence and security forces, political and administrative officers, civil servants and other civilians they accused of not respecting their rules of lockdowns and a liberation tax.”
The Report also stated that, “defence and security forces were accused of unlawful killings of people suspected of collaborating with separatist groups.”
The Report added that, “the Government did not report to accusations of unlawful killings.”
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch, in its 2023 Report added that: “At least 6,000 civilians have been killed by both government forces and separatist fighters since the violence started in late 2016”.
The above situation has forced many within these two regions, especially those being pursued by the government forces as suspected armed fighters or collaborators to flee the country for their safety.
The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, in its August 24th Reported noted that, “according to US Country Report 2017, there continued to be reports of arrests and disappearances of individuals by security forces in Anglophone Cameroon.”
The case of Pekins Nwachukwe Ayuk
On the ground investigations equally revealed that, as a result of the life-threatening situation in the North West and South West Regions, many such as one staff of the Government Regional Hospital in Buea had to flee Cameroon.
His case is that which some Anglophones have had to be arrested, tortured, detained by Government forces, simply on the excuse that one or two of their names have a slight resemblance to the name of one or any of the prominent separatist leaders detained in Cameroon or living abroad.
There is the case of Pekins Nwachukwe Ayuk, who worked as a Data and Disease Surveillance Administrative Assistant with the Government-run Buea Regional Hospital in Buea.
One of the prominent leaders of the Ambazonia Movement, which has been fighting for the independence of the two Anglophone regions and who is presently being detained by the Government, is Sisisiku Ayuk Tabe.
Thus, one of the reasons that Pekins Ayuk, who happens to have suffered multiple arrests by Government forces is being pursued is simply that, he has the same name as the detained separatist leader, Ayuk Tabe.
We gathered on May 20th, 2023 defence and security forces raided the vicinity of Buea because of the separatist fighters imposed lockdowns each time the Government prepares to celebrate the country’s national day on May 20th. For fear of being brutalised by the separatist fighters, Pekins Ayuk, on May 20th, 2023, opted to stay indoors. But soon, soldiers of the elite force Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR, soon encircled Pekins Ayuk’s residential quarters and asked all of them to come out. As soon as they were out, they were ordered to lie prostrate as the soldiers started torturing them on the excuse that they had refused to go out for the National Day celebrations.
The soldiers, we gathered, are said to have intensified the torture when they found out that Pekins bore the name Ayuk.
To the BIR soldiers, the name Ayuk was already enough reason for Pekins to be battered and even killed as he was judged as being a separatist and knows the whereabouts of the other separatists hiding in the bush, simply by virtue of the coincidence of his name to the jailed separatist leader, Ayuk Tabe.
State workers targeted
Meanwhile, the separatist fighters have also been targeting state workers in the North West and South West regions, assaulting, abducting and killing many.
The policy of the separatist fighters has been that any Anglophone working for the state, either in the two regions or in the other parts of the country, must contribute regular finances to support them for their said struggle to liberate the two regions from the “Francophone domination and marginalisation of the Anglophones.” No matter their position and status in the institution they serve.
Thus, anyone who hesitates becomes a target.
This is how Pekins Ayuk, a state employee with the Buea Regional Hospital, was abducted by separatist fighters on February 26th, 2022. He happened to have been returning from a part-time work as a voluntary agent following Cameroon Government’s hosting of the January – February, 2022, African Nations Cup that took place in Cameroon.
The suspected separatist kidnappers, who took him to one of their hideout in the Buea Subdivision, accused him of having failed to obey their lockdowns and orders for the boycott of the tournament.
They equally said he had failed as a state employee to financially support their fight.
But luck is reported to have fell on Pekins, as he beat an escape from the separatists’ hideout after several days of living through brutal torture and abuse.
After having suffered two unlawful arrests by soldiers; first one being on October 1, 2021, his arrest on May 20th, 2023, a brutish stay in separatists’ captivity in February 2022, Pekins Ayuk vamoosed from public view and his whereabouts since then is not known.
His fleeing, however, hasn’t let his family in peace as his family has continued to be persecuted and threatened by both defence and security forces and the separatists to reveal his whereabout.
If rearrested by the defence and security forces, Pekins Nwachukwe Ayuk will be tried in a military tribunal, under the 2014 anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment is the death sentence. That is if he is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extra-judicial killings.
Meanwhile, if the separatist fighters lay hands on him, Pekins Ayuk will certainly be killed, like many others who have suffered from atrocities committed by separatist fighters.
Origin of crisis
It is also worth recalling that the Anglophone crisis, something that pundits say had been brewing for several years, boiled over in 2016, when Common Law Lawyers in the North West and South West regions went on strike. They were demanding for the return of the federal system of government, redeployment of Civil Law Magistrates back to Civil Law Courts in French Cameroon, among other grievances. Not long after, teachers in the North West and South West regions also went on strike, demanding for the redress of several issues concerning the English system of education.
Things, however, got worst when Anglophones in both regions, who had been fed up with the unfavourable political and economic situation of the country, the use of French as the dominant and official language, and the marginalisation of the Anglophones, joined the strike.
The crisis has left thousands of civilians, security and defence forces dead. While others are internally displaced with some living in bushes while over 30,000 have fled to neighbouring Nigeria where they are living as refugees.
Many houses and villages, have been burnt down in the crisis-hit regions.
The separatist leader of the self-declared Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, and eight other close associates of his, who were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon, are currently serving life sentences at the Kondengui maximum security prison in Yaounde.
Many other activists such as Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terrence, Tsi Conrad, among others, are also serving jail terms at the Kondengui prison.
While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause through genuine and inclusive dialogue.