CI-NEWS

How Anglophone prisoners’ riot was infiltrated.

2019-07-30

No: 438

How Anglophone prisoners’ riot was infiltrated.

Many families in Cameroon are inquiring about the whereabouts of their loved ones after rioting rocked the Yaounde, Kondengui and Buea Production prisons last Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Inmates of both prisons, mostly those in detention over the Anglophone crisis, were protesting over long detentions without trial and “hellish” detention conditions. In Kondengui, the Anglophone detainees denounced overcrowding, judicial delays and what they described as deplorable conditions at the Yaounde prison, which was constructed for 750 people but now holds more than 6,000 inmates.

Videos filmed by inmates and uploaded to Facebook showed protesters there crying "Ambazonia rising!" as they hurled debris at security forces inside the Kondengui prison in Yaounde.

Loud crackles that sounded like gunfire could be heard in the background and fires could be seen burning in parts of the prison, sending thick plumes of smoke billowing into the air.

"Our brothers are slaughtered, children killed," said one unidentified man, speaking in English. "We are tired of being in prison. We want to go home," said another.

The almost simultaneous riots, observers said, were just a logical consequence of government’s lack of anticipation despite warnings that both prisons, by dint of their overpopulation, constituted a potential powder keg, ready to explode.

But when the bubble burst last week, the government sought scape-goats elsewhere. Detained supporters of Maurice Kamto’s MRC were accused of seeking to make political capital of the revolt. Some frontline detained militants like Mamadou Mota, first vice president of the MRC, were reportedly mistreated by the police and paraded almost naked to an unknown destination. In all, almost 177 detainees, considered to be ringleaders of the revolt that led to the burning of the prison libraries and disciplinary departments, were picked up and transferred to various interrogation centres in Yaounde and Douala for investigations.

Insiders at the Kondengui prison say the initially peaceful revolt by Anglophone detainees turned violent when prison officials let loose hardened bandits in a bid to intimidate them. This boomeranged on them. The hardened criminals are said to have gone on the rampage, attacking the VIP detention grounds where they dispossessed and wounded high-profile prisoners like former PM, Chief Inoni Ephraim; Olanguena Awono; and Iya Mohamed. Former defence minister, Edgar Alin Mebe Ngo’o, said to have been the main target of the hardened criminals, escaped unscathed. He was reportedly at the female detention cell to visit his wife Benardette when the revolt erupted.

The huge arrests made among the detainees have left family members in a quandary.

University student Terence Meme, 21, says he has been searching for his father, Patrick Meme, since he heard that inmates of the Yaounde Central Prison at Kondengui began rioting.

"We have not heard from him and we have not seen him for the past two days and we are very worried because he is a diabetic patient and he needs regular assistance and health care," Meme said.

Terence says his father was arrested in the town of Ndu, Donga Mantung Division of the North West Region in February 2017 and transferred to Yaounde, where he has been in pre-trial detention as a suspected separatist fighter.

In a release, communication minister and government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi refuted reports that some inmates were killed but said many people were wounded and two were rushed to the hospital.

Sadi said about 170 inmates who were identified as leaders of the rioting had been "arrested." He did not specify where they were taken, but said some inmates had been moved to other facilities to make the Kondengui prison less crowded.

Rights group Amnesty International has called on authorities in Cameroon to refrain from using excessive force against prisoners, and independently and effectively investigate the use of firearms and live ammunition reported during the riot.

Concerning the second riot that was reported at the Buea Central Prison on Tuesday, government said the military intervened to restore order, but provided no other details.

The government statement was contradicted by some press reports that tens of detainees had died in the Buea prison riot. It was also rummoured on social media that the coffin revolution leaders, Mancho Bibixy and Eugene Ngalim, who of late had been clamouring for back-to-school had been eliminated.

The Cameroon National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms reports about 29,000 people are being held in the country's 80 prisons. Commission Chairperson Chemuta Divine Banda says most of the prisons are congested.

"Conditions are unbearable. Unlivable. Escaping would be a natural instinct. Prisons should not be torture centers," Chemuta said. "We have said this clear and clear."

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How Anglophone prisoners’ riot was infiltrated.