BY Annie Lum
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 innocent Anglophone youths and suspected activists. Sources say the arrested persons are being detained under deplorable and inhuman conditions. Some have reportedly died in detention.
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.
In the face of all these, youth activists are bearing the brunt of the unending Anglophone crisis and remain scapegoats. They are at the crossroad between the military and separatist fighters.
The Cameroon defence forces and other security operatives have established both search and arrest warrants for the apprehension of many alleged Anglophone activists all over the national territory. The targeted persons are suspected to be siding with separatist fighters. The alleged activists have been considered as danger and threat to the public and declared wanted.
The population has equally been urged to be vigilant and report to the closest gendarmerie or police stations.
The situation of 26-year-old Fon Divine Achosie remains worrisome. For fear of the unknown, taking into consideration the molestation, torture, arrest and detention under cruel, degrading and inhumane detention conditions by security operatives, his family arranged for him to go underground since he is under security searchlight. Before Fon Divine, an electrician by profession and based in Ekona, a village in Buea Subdivision, Fako Division of the South West Region, escaped out of the country in late 2023, he and his family had been a victim of circumstance amidst the ongoing armed conflict.
Reports say Fon’s first encounter with the military was in September 2017 when he joined other youths and protesters in Ekona in a peaceful demonstration against the government of President Biya and the military because of marginalization, killings and human rights violation of Anglophones.
They were arrested, tortured, molested and others killed while others including Fon Divine were taken to a Buea detention facility where they spent two weeks in custody on grounds that the demonstration was illegal and thus they are enemies to the state. Without any charge, Fon Divine was released after he signed an undertaking.
Family sources say the military raided their Ekona residence around April 2022, killed his father, razed their family home to the ground on grounds that separatist fighter were hiding in their farm and they hadn’t bothered to report to the military.
The most pathetic incident was when the military raided Muea, a town in the outskirts Buea, around August 2023 and arrested Fon Divine and others while they were installing electricity in a house. They were accused by the military of being separatist fighters. The secusity operatives whisked them to their base where they spent five days in detention.
Fon Divine was later be arrested by the military when they raided their village on grounds that some unidentified youths had burnt down the vehicle of a brewery company. However, suddenly sporadic gunshots erupted and most of them, who had been arrested, escaped while others were killed.
With this mishaps surrounding Fon Divine, his mother did all for him to escape out the country for his grandmother was unfortunately shot to dead by the military when they came looking for Fon Divine and he escaped. The military keep making impromptu checks at the residential area of Fon Divine in Ekona just to arrest and prosecute him, family sources have hinted.
It should be recalled that one of the victims of circumstances amidst the ongoing armed conflict in the North West and South West regions is Wilson Mbi Mbu Mformoh.
His father, Mbi Mbu Martin, a gendarme officer working in Mamfe, was brutally killed in March 2019 and his residence in Sumbe razed to the ground by separatist fighters in December 2019. This is said to have been because he refused to drop down his guns and join the Ambazonia fighters.
Reports say Wilson Mbi Mbu Mformoh had on several occasions turned down calls from the separatist fighters to join their quest for the independence of Southern Cameroons.
Following the brutal killing of his father, the military raided the village and killed close to five separatist fighters. This development took another twist for the separatist fighters concluded that the killing of their peers was orchestrates by Wilson Mbi Mbu. While the military continued with investigations and hunting for separatist fighters, one of the soldiers, while exploiting the phone of one of the killed Amba fighters, discovered contacts of many Amba fighters as well as a contact of Wilson Mbi Mbu in the phone. The soldier then concluded Wilson Mbi Mbu was siding and collaborating with the separatist fighters.
This is why the military engaged on a manhunt for Wilson Mbi Mbu to arrest him. For fear of the unknown considering the fact that he had been declared wanted by the military, Wilson Mbi Mbu Mformoh disappeared into an unknown destination in 2020.
As we went to press the military had launched fresh pursuit for his arrest alongside many others for them to be prosecuted at the Yaounde Military Tribunal on terrorism-related offences.
Reports say this situation has caused many to migrate to French -speaking towns and the cities in Cameroon, while others have fled to neighbouring countries as refugees. 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.