Cameroon: Human Rights Watch calls for Prosecution and Sanction against Separatists Fighters for Crimes Against Civilians in a new statement.
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A burned-out classroom in the government primary school in Molyko, Buea, South-West Cameroon, destroyed by suspected separatist fighters on February 7, 2022. © Private, February 8, 2022, Buea, South-West region, Cameroon.
According to Human Rights Watch in their report released on 27 June 2022, Armed separatist fighters have killed at least seven people, injured six others, raped a girl, and committed other grave human rights abuses across Cameroon’s Anglophone regions since January 2022, Human Rights Watch said today. In an uptick of violence, the separatists have also burned at least 2 schools, attacked a university, kidnapped up to 82 people, including 33 students and 5 teachers, and threatened and beat 11 students.
Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior central Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch reitereted that “Armed separatist groups are kidnapping, terrorizing, and killing civilians across the English-speaking regions with no apparent fear of being held to account by either their own leaders or Cameroonian law enforcement” According to her “Leaders of separatist groups should immediately instruct their fighters to stop abusing civilians and hand over abusive fighters for prosecution.”
Between April 1 and June 15, Human Rights Watch interviewed 38 people by telephone, including 27 victims and witnesses to separatist abuses, 3 relatives of victims, 4 Cameroonian journalists, and 4 members of Cameroonian human rights organizations. Human Rights Watch also reviewed medical records, 13 videos, and 56 photographs shared directly with Human Rights Watch researchers or posted on social media showing evidence of separatist abuses.
Between May 1 and 10, Human Rights Watch shared its findings with representatives of three major separatist groups: the spokesperson as well as the vice-president of the Ambazonia Interim Government (Sako), Christopher Anu and Dabney Yerima; the defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF), Capo Daniel; and the chairman of the African People’s Liberation Movement (APLM), Ebenezer Derek Mbongo Akwanga. Only Daniel responded.
On April 5, separatists stormed the campus of the Bamenda university, in Bambili, North-West region, shooting in the air, causing panic among students and teachers, and leading to a stampede that injured at least five people. The fighters attacked the university for not observing a “lockdown,” or stay-at-home order, that they had declared across the area. Fighting to create an independent Anglophone state of “Ambazonia” since 2016, separatists target civilians who do not observe their calls for school boycotts or general lockdowns. These abusive calls trample the basic rights of an already terrorized civilian population, and separatist fighters and their leaders should be held accountable and punished for their violent enforcement, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch spoke to five witnesses of the attack against the Bamenda university, consulted local media reports on the incident, and reviewed a 15-second video filmed at the campus on the day of the attack that showed students fleeing after hearing gunshots.
“I saw three separatist fighters shooting from the campus football field,” a 28-year-old student told Human Rights Watch. “I was less than 50 meters from them. They kept firing for 20 minutes.”
Witnesses said that there was sustained gunfire for about 25 minutes as gendarmes responded. Residents of Bambili said fighters belonging to the separatist group Restoration Forces have their camp in Fonyah, less than 6 kilometers away from the campus.
It is not the first time that separatist fighters attack the Bamenda university. Human Rights Watch documented separatists storming a campus dormitory on May 20, 2020, kidnapping nine students. The separatists took the students to their camp, beat them, and held them for five days, until a ransom was paid.
On February 26, at about 3 p.m., separatist fighters stopped two vehicles from the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS), a nonprofit medical organization, at a checkpoint in Mile 90, North-West region. They fired at one vehicle, killing Jenette Sweyah Shey, a 46-year-old female nurse, and injuring another female nurse and a male doctor. The medical workers were returning from Ashong and Nyonga, two localities where CBCHS had provided health assistance to people in need.
Please you can read through the link below, Multiple Attacks, Buea, South-West Region, Kidnapping of Workers in Tiko and Idenau, South-West Region, and Rape of a Gir, Kidnapping of Workers in Tiko and Idenau, South-West Region, and Rape of a Gir, Kidnapping of Workers in Tiko and Idenau, South-West Region, and Rape of a Gir, Arson Attacks on Primary School, Buea, South-West Region, Arson Attack on Queen of the Rosary College, Okoyong, South-West Region, Attack in Mamfe, South-West Region, Kidnapping of Senator and Her Driver, Bamenda, North-West Region, Attempted Kidnapping of Journalist, Bamenda, North-West Region Cameroon: Separatist Abuses in Anglophone Regions | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
Berinyuy Cajetan is the founder and publisher of Human Rights and Legal Research Centre (HRLRC) since 2017. He has intensive experience in strategic communications for Civil Society Organizations, campaign and advocacy, and social issues. He has an intensive experiencing in human rights monitoring, documentation and reporting.
