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 defence and security forces.

Security operatives have been indiscriminately arresting Anglophone activists and suspected activists while innocent youths are bearing the brunt of the unending armed struggle in the hands of both military and separatist fighters. These innocent youths are usually caught in the web of military officers and separatist fighters. They are either kidnapped for ransom by separatist fighters, taken to their respective camps, molested, tortured in an inhumane manner, while the military are involved in extrajudicial killings of innocent youths.

Lockdowns and ghost towns being the order of the day causing, there is untold hardship as places at times remain closed for several weeks, making it difficult for people to purchase food stuff for the family.

In the face of all these, the defence and security forces have established both search and arrest warrants for the apprehension against many youths and alleged Anglophone activists all over the national territory, suspected to be siding with separatist fighters as the armed conflict rages on.

These alleged activists are being considered dangerous and threats to the public and have been declared wanted. The population has equally been urged to be vigilant and report them to the closest gendarmerie or police stations.

It is against this backdrop that unanswered questions have been raised about the whereabouts of many Anglophones who have disappeared amidst the ongoing armed conflict.

One of such is Allen Enoh Bate, whose whereabouts since the month of June 2017 is unknown. He has been declared wanted and the arrest warrant against him is still enforceable.

As we went to press, military sources hinted that Allen Enoh Bata’s name, amongst other youths, has appeared in the list of those to be prosecuted if arrested as they have been declared wanted.

THE SUN gathered that due to the lockdowns and ghost towns calls by separatist fighters leading to scarcity of food stuff in Enoh Bata’s Bunduma–Buea neighbourhood, he decided to muster courage to go and purchase food from a grocery. Sources say upon his return from the grocery, he, along other,s were intercepted by military officers who tortured and whisked them to their station where they were detained incommunicado for a week. This was on grounds that they were Ambazonia fighters who have taken up arms against the state. Allen Enoh Bate miraculously escaped from detention and immediately went underground.

Flashback of the 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.

The crisis has left thousands, both civilians and security and defence forces dead, others internally displaced with some living in bushes, while over 40,000 have fled to neighbouring Nigeria where they are living as refugees, houses as well as villages  razed to the ground with extrajudicial killings being a regular occurrence.

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.

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As the crisis in the North West and South West Regions, which long escalated into an armed conflict, continues to take new twists, the government, through the defence and security forces, has been cracking on civilians, carrying out raids on several communities.

The military has been storming communities within the crisis-hit regions, indiscriminately arresting persons. Sources say the arrested persons are being tortured and detained under inhumane conditions. Some are reported to have died in detention.

Meanwhile, there have also been reports of the military committing atrocities such as rape, torture of young people whom they arrest. Civil society organisations have condemned such actions carried out by the military.

A group of civil society organisations including Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, CHRDA; Reach out Cameroon among others, recently condemned such atrocities. The national civil society organisations, along with international observers, have reported abuses by state security forces.

These reports include allegations of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and torture, disappearances, rape, burning of villages, excessive force against protesters, among others.

International human rights groups and UN bodies have repeatedly echoed condemnations and called for investigations into the abuses.

Military raids Bambili, reportedly commits atrocities

It should be recalled that back in September 2020, the military had launched a raid on Bambili, Tubah Subdivision, Mezam Division of the North West Region. This was after the military had a confrontation with Ambazonia separatist fighters. There was mass arrests by military of about 30 people, amongst whom were young students, local businessmen and ladies.

The arrested persons were taken to unknown destinations and it was alleged that days later, they were whisked to a military camp. The arrested ladies are alleged to have been raped and tortured, leading to the death of some.

We gathered that the arrested persons included Eveline Sota, Bessin Tambong, Soba Athanasius, Kum Marcel, Megan Joyceline, Mefa John, Matilda Ngomou, Che Neba Carine, Tah Gilbert Tah, Missah Ruben Ngong, and a few unidentified others.

However, following pressure from civil society organisations and alleged payment of a huge sums of money as bribe to some military officers, the arrested persons were later released.

But for fear of their lives, they are said to have vamoosed and their whereabouts remains unknown. If rearrested, they may be tried in a military tribunal, under the 2014 anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment is the death sentence. That is if they are not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings within the context of the armed conflict in the North West and South West regions.

Flashback on origin Anglophone crisis

It should be recalled 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 sub system of education.

Things, however, got worse 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 situation later escalated into an armed conflict when some Anglophones piked up arms, fighting for the independence of country they have named. Ambazonia.

The crisis has left thousands, both civilians and security and defence forces dead, some 700,000 displaced with some living in bushes while over 50,000 have fled to neighbouring Nigeria, where they are living as refugees.

Many houses, and even whole 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 at the Kondengui maximum security prison where they are serving life sentences. They were sentenced by the Yaounde military tribunal in August 2019 on charges including terrorism and secession.

Many other activists such as Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terrence, Tsi Conrad, among others, are 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.

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Two years after the January 2018 military raids in Kwakwa, a village in Cameroon’s South-West Region, Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla, President of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa suggests the State Forces may have committed war crimes.

Cameroon’s military subjected local civilians in Kwakwa to “collective punishment” through ground attacks, detentions that led to torture or extrajudicial executions, and the razing of the entire village, according to the head of the Buea-based rights group.

Barrister Agbor Nkongho, himself a victim of the ongoing socio-political unrest in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West Regions says over two years on, he has found that clashes between the military and armed groups in the two regions reignited in the wake of the military atrocities in Kwakwa worsened significantly from January 2018 to June 2020. Hundreds of Anglophone civilians have been killed in the fighting and more than a million people have been displaced.

“The world’s attention may have moved away from Cameroon’s Anglophone regions since the 2018 burnings and killings in Kwakwa, but civilians continue to pay a high price. The military’s ongoing assault on civilians in the North-West and South-West regions has been widespread and systematic, likely amounting to crimes against humanity,” Agbor Nkongho, President/Founder of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, told The SUN.

“Alarm bells should be ringing: the ongoing killing, looting and burning bear all the hallmarks of the military’s signature tactic of collective punishment, which it has repeatedly used against Anglophone minorities across the country.”

Over two years on, eyewitnesses described the attacks on locations where “only civilians appear to have been present” as extremely traumatic, leaving many unable to sleep or unwilling to return to their homes out of fear that they would be targeted again.

It all started with the killing of the 3rd class Chief of Ngongo village, HRH Chief Ekebe Johannes, in Mbonge Sub-Division in the wee hours of Friday, January 12, 2018 during the funeral of Chief Tukwa Manfred of Kwakwa. The SUN gathered that the killing was carried out by separatist fighters active in Kwakwa and its environs. Following the killing, 30 military trucks and pick-ups with armed-to-the-teeth soldiers stormed Kwakwa the next day.

Kwa Kwa village razed to the ground

A 96 –year –old woman, Mami Appih Paulina, was consumed by the fire in her house as she was unable to flee like others; the same fate befell an alleged mentally deranged, Tebeck Felix.

The Assistant Parish Priest of St Paul Catholic Church of Kwa Kwa, Rev. Father Ndode Emmanuel equally escaped death as the entire presbytery was equally set ablaze by elements of the Cameroon military. Reports hold that the priest was in Kumba for Cathedral duties. Veteran Journalist and one of Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalist, CAMASEJ’s founding fathers, Dat William Diony said four of his permanent buildings had gone up in flames. Property and money belonging to the inhabitants, most of whom are farmers was allegedly consumed by the fire.

The family home of Belgium-based Tanyi Emmanuel Enoh was also touched. The 44-year-old is said to be an ardent sympathizer of the Anglophone struggle against marginalization. He is known to have attended several anti-government rallies in Europe to protest against 87-year-old Paul Biya who has ruled Cameroon since 1982.

Relatives of Tanyi Emmanuel Enoh are among many Anglophones currently taking up refuge in the heart of the forest for fear of being killed by state forces in their collective punishment pursuit and scorth earth policy. Today, Kwa-Kwa remains deserted and it remains unclear how soon a return to normalcy could be envisaged.

Military raids have multiplied against secessionists and their sympathizers and the battle will sure be long.

Extrajudicial executions, looting and burning

Barrister Agbor Nkongho told The SUN that the military regularly carries out arbitrary detentions of civilians based on their being Anglophones or because of their suspected support of anti-government and secessionist groups. Some detainees “have been tortured, forcibly disappeared or extrajudicially executed,” Agbor said.

The human rights lawyer specifically pointed to an incident that drew international condemnation in Ngarbuh, a locality in Cameroon’s North-west Region on 14 February 2020, when the military killed at least 21 civilians including 3 children and two pregnant women and buried their bodies in mass graves. Houses were also burnt.

While the there is a warrant of arrest for the likes of Tanyi Emmanuel Enoh, Kale Dante, Mark Bareta, Tapang Ivo Tanku, Capo Daniel and many more, the victims of displacement are forced to shelter in “dire conditions,” while aid workers are obstructed by the military from providing them access to much-needed food and health care.

“Donors and humanitarian organizations must significantly scale up aid to civilians in Cameroon’s North-West Region, and the military must halt all restrictions on aid delivery,” said Agbor Balla.

“The military’s ongoing crimes against civilians reflect decades-long patterns of abuse and flagrant impunity. The international community — including the A.U. and U.N. member states — must tackle this festering crisis now. The U.N. Security Council must impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Cameroon and refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.”

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