Amnesty International decries “rampant atrocities amid anglophone regions”
By Hans Ngala
The human rights group, Amnesty International has condemned the deteriorating security situation in the two English-speaking regions of the country.
In a statement dated July 4 which CNA has seen, Amnesty’s West and Central Africa regional director, Samira Daoud said “Cameroonian authorities must act to end the violence against the population and conduct thorough investigations into the killings, acts of torture, rapes, burning of houses and other atrocities committed in the Anglophone regions”.
The organization’s latest report faulted all parties to the conflict including “defence and security forces”; “militias”; “armed separatists” and “Mbororo Fulani militias”.
The report which focuses on crimes inflicted by the parties above on the population, focus on the period from 2020 to present and “highlights the urgent need for protection for those denouncing the atrocities inflicted upon the population”.
In the report, the rights group states that “The Anglophone crisis resulted from the repressive response to largely peaceful protests in 2016-2017, which demanded an end to the marginalization of the Anglophone minority…”.
In the report, the organization states that they conducted two visits to Cameroon between November 2022 and March 2023 and spoke with over 100 victims of the crisis including NGO leaders, journalists and local human rights activists with one victim narrating that his wife was shot and burned along with his two children.
Mbororo Fulani herders are also named in the report as cooperating with security forces in the burning of some 13 homes in the village of Gheidze and expressed concerns over “Cameroonian authorities’ failure to cooperate effectively with international and regional human rights institutions” and called for all perpetrators to be prosecuted and punished according to the laws of the land.
