International Human Rights watch dog, Amnesty International, has seriously condemned abuses by armed groups and the military in the North-West and South-West Regions of Cameroon including arbitrary detention, unlawful attacks and killings as the arm conflict in the two Anglophone regions continues unabated.

The condemnation by the Rights group of international repute is contained in her 2021 report published on Tuesday, March 29, 2022.

According to the Rights group, separatist fighters in 2021 continued to commit grave human rights violations in the North-West and South-West regions, targeting people, healthcare facilities and schools. According to the report, from January 10 to June, United Nations Humanitarian Organisations, OCHA, reported 29 attacks on healthcare facilities in the North-West and seven in the South-West region; health workers and patients were abducted and installations were burnt.

The report further states that on January 9, the head of a school in Ossing, Manyu division, South-West region, was reportedly killed by unidentified men. Amnesty International disclosed that, according to OCHA, on March 5, unidentified armed men abducted a student from a school in the village of Batoke, South-West region and on March 6, armed men abducted two teachers and a student from a school in Bamenda, North-West region.

On November 24, the report disclosed that, unidentified gunmen attacked a school in Ekondo-Titi, South-West region killing four students and a teacher, meanwhile on February 27, suspected armed separatists, abducted a doctor in the North-West region, accusing him of not supporting the separatists’ cause and he was release after paying a ransom.

The report further states that, on March 13, according to the National Union of Journalists, a Journalist at Cameroon Radio Television was abducted from her home by suspected armed separatists and was released after a ransom was paid and that on June 15, six civil servants were abducted in Masore Balue, South-West region and one of them was executed according to state media and Human Rights Organisations.

Traditional authorities were also targeted, suspected for siding with the Cameroonian government and on February 13, armed men abducted four traditional leaders in Fontem, South-West Region with three of them reportedly found dead. These human Rights abuses according to the report, happened in the context of growing inter-communal tensions. Between 22 and 26 February, the report states that at least 4,200 people were displayed from seven villages in Nwa Subdivision, North-West region, after attacks by Fulani vigilante groups, resulting in the deaths of at least eight people. On March 5, armed men according to the report attacked Fulani herdsmen in lower Menchum Valley, North-West region, killing at least 10 people, after the herdsmen’s cattle had allegedly destroyed a farmer’s crops. According to OCHA, two days later in Lower Menchum Valley, armed men attacked Fulani people, killing six people, allegedly to avenge the death of a woman burnt alive in her house in Beneng village.

Arbitrary detention

Citing the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in two opinions adopted in August 2019 and May 2021, called for the release of Mancho Bibixy and Tse Conrade. The report indicates that the two men led protests in the Anglophone regions, in 2016 and 2017 and were sentenced by a military court in Yaoundé to 15 years in prison, following their conviction notably for “acts of terrorism, secession, spreading false information and contempt for public bodies and officials”. Dozens of other Anglophone leaders remained in detention after having been tried by military tribunals.

According to Amnesty International, more than 100 members of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, CRM , reportedly remained in arbitrary detention; they were charged and sentenced by the military courts for attempted revolution, rebellion, aggravated assembly, or participation in the organisation of an undeclared public meeting, in relation to their activism or their participation in banned protests in September 2020 among them Olivier Bibou Nissack, the spokesperson of MRC, Leader  Maurice Kamto, and Alain Fogue Tedom, National Treasurer of the MRC, were sentenced to seven years in prison. On December 31 according to the report, after 15 months of pre-trialdetention, four members of the Stand Up for Cameroon Movement were found guilty of “insurrection” and sentenced to 16 months in prison by a military tribunal. They had been arrested during a meeting ahead of September protest.

Unlawful attacks, killings

According to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International reports that soldiers killed at least nine people in South-West Region, January 10, and looted homes. The report further indicates that between June 8 and 10, Cameroonian security forces also killed two people, raped a 53- year-end old woman and destroyed and looted at least 33 homes shops and a traditional leader’s palace in the North West Region. The report further states that in following an improvised explosive device attack on a Rapid Intervention Battalion Convoy in on December 8, elements of army forces were reportedly burnt a large number of houses.

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The North West and South West regions of Cameroon have remained restive since the outbreak of the Anglophone crisis in 2017. Investigative findings and reports from many human rights groups and non-governmental organisations have condemned extrajudicial killings, by mostly the military, on innocent civilians including children and pregnant women, and the burning of houses.

The Cameroon government has, for over three years now, has been battling to arrest the situation but tensions continue to intensify with civilian population in the North West and South West Regions in peril, panic and pandemonium. Due to this confusion, and fear of the unknown, many youths and businessmen continue to go underground.

The SUN has it on good record that Peter Ngwenwo Ekokobe Fontem, a prolific Kumba-based electrician and lone Mobile Money Business Operators in his area, is currently on the run and military men have blacklisted him for siding with the separatist fighters. As we went to press his whereabouts remains a mystery since December 2021.

Peter Ngwenwo Ekokobe Fontem, reports say, has been arrested several times by security operatives and accused of using his money mobile transfer services to receive money from Anglophone activists abroad for onward transmission to separatist fighters to better arm them.

They are fighting for the independence former Southern Cameroons into a country they have christened Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

In one of his arrests and detentions Ngwenwo was only released after a month thanks to the intervention of family friends after the Police allegedly received a bribe of FCFA 500,000, including the FCFA 2,000,000 million that was in his phone. Sometime in December 2021, Peter Ngwenwo is reported to have  received a call from a soldier, apparently the father his close friend, informing him that he has seen his  name on a list of those who will be arrested to face trial at the Military Court in Yaounde and that he should go underground.

It should be recalled that Common Law Lawyers went to strike in October 2016 to protest government attempts to annihilate the Common Law practice in a constitutionally bilingual and bi-jural Cameroon. The strike lasted for over a year. Anglophone teachers in the country joined the strike on November 21, 2016 to uphold Anglo-Saxon values under threat in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions. The government crackdown on Anglophone activists has since intensified with arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and extra-judicial killings becoming the new normal, human rights groups, have said.

Investigative findings from many human rights groups and nongovernmental organisations have in one voice condemned the extra-judicial killings by mostly the military on innocent civilians including children and pregnant women and burning of houses.

Reports say this situation has caused many to migrate to French Cameroon, while others have fled to neighbouring countries where they are living as refugees. According to statistics from human rights groups, over 7,000 persons have been killed, hundreds kidnapped, thousands of houses and over 400 villages razed with over 75,000 persons identified as internally displaced, with over 45,000 as refugees in Nigeria. Some have been left in constant fears either for the demise of their love ones or because their houses have been razed.

These attacks have been so alarming that human rights groups across the board have concluded that Cameroon is no longer safe.

As we went to Press, sources disclosed that since then Peter Ngwenwo Ekokobe Fontem’s whereabouts remains a misery as the military keeps parading the neighbourhood in Kumba where his family residence is located, searching for him and many other suspected Anglophone activists.

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The Cameroon Government has launched fresh hunt for Anglophone activists at home and abroad following the gruesome killing of students and pupils by armed men suspected to be separatist fighters at the Mother Francisca Memorial Bilingual International Academy Fiango, Kumba, Meme Division South West Region, of Cameroon in October 2020. The Government and its security forces belief that the Anglophone crisis that has culminated in the macabre incident in Kumba which took away the lives of about seven students and pupils, is being fanned by activists at home and abroad.

They are thus, bent on tracking these activists both within and out of the country and their families. Recent reports hold that the military has started raiding homes of alleged activists for the arrest, persecution and prosecution of the activists. The Government forces believe the prosecution of these activists will quail the crisis.

Some of these alleged activists who are in the military dragnet and are reportedly on the run include Tiko-based Angu Kevin Ambe, Kumba-based Lawyer Okole Dyana, Bafut-based Ngew Che Peter, Mbengwi-based Aliba Monga Voilet and Buea-based Mukete Iya Diwo amongst other.

Ngew Che Peter, for example is an automobile motor mechanic turned activist who escaped from the military truck in April 2018 somewhere in Between Bafut and Bambui in the North West Region of the Country, abandoning his Cameroon national identity card including Bahrain resident card after he was captured . He is believed to be one of the key persons sponsoring the crisis from abroad currently on the run. This is because he has always stood for the independence of Southern Cameroon. The Sun gathered that, before Anglophone crisis he was already involved in sensitising Kumba population about pre and post-independence of Southern Cameroon, where he escaped an arrest. It is now clear that Ngew Che Peter has always been in Bahrain since he escaped in 2016 and has possibly sneaked back there after escaping the April 2018 arrest.

At press time, the search for these alleged activists and many others had increased. Report of a survey released by a group of Human Rights Organisations in Cameroon indicates that the lives of activists of Anglophone extraction are now in danger.

Anyone caught in line with any of these demonstrations, is immediately considered a terrorist by the Cameroon Government and numerous trump up charges, including but not limited to propagation of false information, rebellion, revolution, secession insurrection and non -possession of National Identity card, levelled against him.

The Anglophone crisis is now characterised by civil disobedience, violence, intimidation, kidnappings and complete breakdown of law and order with the military allegedly burning down homes and villages considered as enemies of the State.

As the crisis rages on, many have become internally displayed persons. Recent statistics by Civil society Organisations who have declared Cameroon as unsafe for youths. The death toll is on the rise. There are claims that about 300 villages have been razed to the ground in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon, 5000 lives claimed by the arm conflict while about 850000 people remain internally displaced. A majority of those displaced, are taking refuge in the forest. This is in addition to the more than 50000 Anglophones Cameroonians that have assumed the status of refugees in Nigeria.

Meantime, the government has launched a manhunt for those alleged to be fanning the crisis at home and abroad with terrorism charges to be preferred against them if arrested as they have declared wanted. Recently, French President Emmanuel Marcon, promised to exert maximum pressure on President Paul Biya of Cameroon to end the Cameroon’s intolerable Human Rights violation

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