CI-NEWS

Atrocities committed by Separatist Fighters and Government Forces.

2019-12-09

No: 460

Atrocities committed by Separatist Fighters and Government Forces.

In July 2018, Human Rights Watch reported that during government operations in 12 villages in the Northwest and Southwest Regions between January and April that year, government forces shot and killed more than a dozen civilians, including at least seven persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities who had difficulty fleeing. On May 25 same year, elements of the Gendarmerie, the 51st Motorized Infantry Brigade, and the Special Operations Group of the National Police carried out a raid on a location believed to harbour Anglophone activists, killing 27 persons in Menka-Pinyin, Santa Subdivision of the Northwest Region according to official sources. Security forces battling Anglophone secessionists in the Northwest and Southwest Regions allegedly killed two clerics.

Still in 2018 Anglophone separatists attacked and killed several dozen civilians considered loyal to the central government and members of defense and security forces in these two regions. According to the government’s Emergency Humanitarian Assistance Plan, as of June 11 2019, the death toll attributed to separatists was 84, including 32 members of defence forces, 42 gendarmes, seven policemen, two prison guards, and one Eco-guard, some of whom were mutilated or decapitated and their video footages went viral on social media. Civilian victims include the chief of Esukutan in Toko Subdivision of the Southwest Region, murdered on February 5, 2018; the Divisional Officer for Batibo in the Northwest, abducted on February 11, 2018, and eventually killed; and Ashu Thomas Nkongho, Discipline Master of Government Bilingual High School in Kossala, Meme Division of the Southwest Region, killed on school premises on April 25, 2019.

Unidentified gunmen killed a local chief in a church in Tiko in the South West Region and a priest, alleging their opposition to secession by the Northwest and Southwest Regions. Disappearances have been common on both sides. For instance, separatist fighters in the North West Region held captive the Regional Delegate for Social Affairs whose video was later broadcast on social media with him calling on government to provide an immediate solution to the Anglophone crisis as condition for his release. Nothing has ever been heard of him since August 2017.

Government forces are also believed to be responsible for disappearance of suspected Anglophone separatists, with reports of bodies dumped far from the site of killings to make identification difficult. According to credible non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the government did not readily account for some of the activists arrested in connection with the Anglophone crisis. Family members and friends of the detainees were frequently unaware of the missing individuals’ location in detention for a month or more. For example, authorities held incommunicado Ayuk Sisiku Tabe, the self-proclaimed “acting president” of the so-called Republic of Ambazonia, along with 46 other Anglophone separatists, from January 29, 2018, until late June when they were allowed to meet with their lawyers and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). While villagers in Mamfe report targeted military shootings in a catholic church in that area that killed a priest from Kenya, Father Cosmas, government officials blame separatists.

The now armed conflict in the English speaking parts of Cameroon has killed over 2,000 people and left more than 500,000 internally displaced with some reportedly crossing the Mexican border to the US on foot and others staying in refugee camps in neighbouring Nigeria. In areas most affected, it has radically disrupted everyday life, with 40 percent of health care centers and 80 percent of schools still paralyzed. On several occasions, classrooms have been transformed into bases for armed separatists, and children fear gunfire on their way to school. The bulk of schools in hardest hit areas like Bui, Boyo, Menchum and Momo divisions in the North West Region and Manyu, Ndian, parts of Fako, Lebialem, and Meme Divisions in the South West Region have completely lost their original purpose for the last 36 months and running. UN estimates from Novembers 2019 put the figures of internally displaced persons at over 437,500.

Burden on host populations

It is difficult to ascertain the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) per regions in the country as a result of the crisis but most of them have sought refuge in major cities like Yaoundé. But it is such a difficult task to get on with a significant number of displaced persons taking into consideration the African extended form of family and its exigencies.

“Having to take care of seven IDPs including my family of four has been financially very demanding for me,” said Mr Thaddeus Nguossum, a businessman in Yaounde from Boyo Division of the North West Region.

“I now spend more that thrice what I used to spend in the past in my home and I fear I might have to stop business in the nearest future”, he added.

He says he prays that no one should fall sick in his family of 11 for the financial repercussions could be life-threatening. His story is not different from that recounted by Mr Henry Njong, a barber.

“I am now forced to take care of three additional children. Their tuition costs me FCFA 300.000 per year in Yaounde.” he said, expressing the desire to see the crisis end because he is used to spending four times lesser than this amount in caring for the children when they were at home.

Genesis of the armed conflict

In the Anglophone North West and South West regions of Cameroon, the absence of a genuine political process to address decades-old grievances against the Biya government contributed to the radicalization of the discourse and tactics of Anglophone activists.

In 2016 and 2017, government forces responded with excessive force to largely peaceful demonstrations organized by members of the country’s Anglophone minority who were calling for increased autonomy for their region. During demonstrations in late 2017, government forces used live ammunition, including from helicopters, against demonstrators and bystanders, killing at least a dozen people and injuring scores.

In October 2017, separatist leaders unilaterally declared independence of the North West and South West regions, and the formation of a new nation styled “Ambazonia”. The following month, President Biya announced that Cameroon was under attack from terrorists and vowed to “eradicate these criminals.” The spate and scale of separatists’ attacks against security forces, government workers, and state institutions increased. The use of offensive language by government envoys and representatives to the regions such as calling the minority Anglophones “two cubes of sugar in an ocean”, “dogs”, “extremists”, “terrorists” compounded by government’s outright denial of the existing problem has only helped to expose what Cameroon and the world now have as an armed conflict in the country.

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Atrocities committed by Separatist Fighters and Government Forces.