Cameroon: Multiple actors committed 'atrocities' in Anglophone regions

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Amnesty International
4 Jul 2023 12:55

A new report by Amnesty International reveals that defense and security forces, militias, and armed separatists have been responsible for killings, rapes, and burning down of houses in Cameroon.

Cameroonians, including women and children, refugees from Cameroon's restive anglophone regions, gather for a meeting at Bashu-Okpambe village, in Boki district of Cross Rivers State in Nigeria, Jan. 31, 2018. (AFP)

In a conclusive new report, Amnesty International detailed the rampant human rights violations and other crimes under domestic law committed by multiple actors in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon.

The report titled "With or against us: the population caught between the Army, armed separatists, and militias in north-west Cameroon," exposed "atrocities" perpetrated by these groups in the region, most notably since the year 2020. It also emphasizes how urgently people who are protesting the crimes committed against the people need to be protected.

The Anglophone crisis was the outcome of the repressive response to largely peaceful protests in 2016-2017, which demanded an end to the marginalization of the Anglophone minority.

Since then, it has intensified into a scenario of armed conflict in the North-West and South-West areas, trapping the population in the fighting between numerous players. Extreme agony and fatalities are now occurring.

Additionally, the report specified the heinous crimes that armed separatists have committed against the population, with a special emphasis on those that have been committed against the Mbororo Fulani community in the North-West.

“They shot my wife and burned her along with my two children”

-Survivor

In the North-West area, Mbororo Fulani militias have also been implicated in killings and the destruction of homes, at least in some cases with the assistance or complacency of Cameroonian forces.

The report also stated horrific findings. "The militias were armed with cutlasses, sticks, spears, and knives, while the soldiers had guns; They burned down the houses while soldiers were shooting in their air and guarding the area."

"Then they took me and my daughter. They put us in a vehicle and set fire to the house. Every day they [military men] raped us, one after the other."

-Survivor

The report also expressed concern about military cooperation between Cameroon and its international partners, including France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Croatia, "Israel", Russia, Serbia, and the US, urging them "to carry out rigorous human rights risk assessments before sending further arms and to conduct end-use monitoring to ensure that military assistance does not contribute to further human rights abuses.”

The lack of effective collaboration between the Cameroonian government and regional and international human rights organizations is another major concern raised in the report by Amnesty International.