BY SANDRA LUM
Almost two months since Doctors Without Borders, DWB, suspended its activities in the Southwest Region due to the arrest and detention of its staff member on December 27, 2021 for transporting a patient with gunshot wounds in their ambulance, its partners – mostly grassroots Non-Governmental Organisations, have increasingly been caught in the crosshair of government forces.
Reports say government forces have repeatedly been pointing accusing fingers ar these NGOs for siding and acting as channels of foreign funding to secessionist groups.
Recently, THE SUN gathered that the leaders of two grassroots organizations have fallen victim to the arbitrary actions of security operatives. On May 25, 2022 the Project Manager of Torkulere Initiatives, Monono Mange, and Program Coordinator of Tabitha’s Home, Ayuk Agbor Adolph, were apprehended during one of their community outreach activities sponsored by DWB in the village of Konye, Meme Division, Southwest Region of Cameroon.
The organizations are targeted for supposedly being funded by foreign organizations and partners that use them as mediums for channeling huge funding to separatist fighters who have picked up arms to unseat the government and declared their own state – Ambazonia. Without substantial proof of these allegations, the two cadres of the organizations were arrested and whisked to the Buea Central Prison and detained incommunicado. All attempts to get reliable information about their wellbeing remain cloudy.
It should be noted that all these are coming at a time when many communities in the North West and South West Regions are in dire need of services provided by such grassroots NGOs. The arbitrary arrest and detention of the leaders of these NGOs expose a trend towards the increasing targeting of NGOs as the government of Cameroon desperately attempts to clampdown on renewed attacks on its forces by the secessionist groups.
International Human Rights Organisations in the country have called on government to respect international conventions governing the operations and activities of NGOs.