BY Jessica Ako
A long and arduous search for alleged activists backing the Anglophone crisis is underway amidst the ongoing unrest in the North West and South West Region of Cameroon.
Faced with the deteriorating, socio-political conditions and other security concerns, the Cameroon government has, in a desperate attempt to calm the troubled waters, multiplied efforts at apprehending those considered brains behind the crisis.
What started as a strike action in 2016 by Common Law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers has escalated into armed struggle, characterised by civil disobedience, violence, intimidation, kidnapping for ransom and an outright lawlessness with the military allegedly burning houses and villages of those considered as “enemies of the state”.
Many innocent youths, businessmen, and those of other professions living in the restive North West and South West Regions are now caught in the web of both the military and separatists. Government, through its security forces, has made life very unbearable for many innocent Anglophone civilians, youths including pregnant women. Many have been declared wanted and listed for arrests reasons why they are seeking for safe havens in distant countries, while separatist fighters have blacklisted other as blacklegs for being spies of the government.
A case in point which THE SUN gathered recently is that 29-year-old Fleur Monique Agbor Boudbe. Her situation has been considered as a typical case of witch-hunting and blackmail. Life became unbearable for her amidst the ongoing crisis. She and family are being accused of siding with separatists.
She has been declared wanted and her family is currently having sleepless nights as to her whereabouts since 2024. One of their cousins, Endoh Paul Agbor, an alleged sseparatist, THE SUN learnt, was reportedly living with them in Tiko, thus forcing the military to invade their residence sometimes on October 1, 2019.
Fleur was apprehended alongside her friend and alleged separatist cousin, whose name we got as Endoh Paul Agbor and whisked to an unknown destination.
Reports say Fleur only regained her consciousness while in the hospital after allegedly being raped.
Government immediately tagged their entire family for not only siding with separatists, but equally sponsoring their activities.
In September 2022, Fleur received information from a close aide in the Tiko judiciary that an arrest warrant has been issued against her on grounds that her family is housing secessionists and separatists. That is how Fleur became traumatised, coupled with the fact that she had been raped twice, making her a single mother, the disappearance of her separatist cousin and the fact that she is a lesbian having been arrested and detained several times by the security in Tiko, the family had no other option than to cause her escape from Cameroon.
By press time family sources have hinted that despite the fact that their daughter, Fleur Monique Agbor Boudbe’s whereabouts is cloudy, the military keeps making impromptu checks around their neighbourhood to arrest her on grounds that she is siding with the separatists and the fact that she is a lesbian which is criminalised in Cameroon and thus have declared her wanted and have vowed to arrest, detaine and prosecute her any time she is found within national territory.
The government crackdown on alleged Anglophone activists and politicians, more especially youths, have since intensified with arbitrary arrests, detention, and torture and extra-judicial killings becoming the new normal, human rights groups have said.
Government forces have engaged in extrajudicial killings, random looting, shooting, torture, molestation using disproportionate and discriminating force, abusing and arresting protesters, burning more than 200 villages, 500 houses, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, attacking hospitals, beating and raping women and girls.
While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the Government to address the root cause of the crisis through dialogue. Also, prominent Anglophone lawyer and human rights activist, Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla, has called on the Government to dialogue, and to release all Anglophones unlawfully detained and imprisoned.