Southern Cameroons Crisis: APLA announces one-day national lockdown ⁰

The Ambazonia People’s Liberation Authority (APLA) endorses the one-day National Lockdown announced from Ground Zero by APLC Communications on November 10. On Thursday, November 19, the scheduled date of the NERA 10 hearing in Cameroon, Ambazonians will stand in solidarity with the NERA 10 and all Ambazonian prisoners.

The Freedom of Ambazonia Prisoners Initiative addresses ten years of arrests and detention. It documents abductions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful transfers, and politically motivated imprisonment of Southern Cameroons Ambazonians in Cameroon and abroad. APLA will pursue release, accountability, compensation, and other remedies while protecting detainees and their families.

APLA calls for a peaceful stay-at-home observance across Southern Cameroons. Shops and schools should close for the day, and nonessential travel should pause. Observe the day without demonstrations or barricades. Keep routes open for emergency transport and access to health care, food, water, and humanitarian assistance. Ambazonians abroad can amplify the demand for freedom.

APLA demands that Cameroon’s courts end the repeated adjournments and that Cameroon immediately and unconditionally release President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe and the other nine members of the NERA 10. In Opinion No. 59/2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found their detention arbitrary and called for their release, as well as compensation and other reparations from Cameroon and Nigeria.

APLA demands justice and freedom for all Ambazonians held arbitrarily or imprisoned for political reasons. Cameroon and all governments concerned must answer for abuses within their jurisdiction. The people of Southern Cameroons will continue to assert their right to determine their future and to demand a just, internationally negotiated settlement.

To the NERA 10 and every Ambazonian prisoner, your people remember you and stand with you.

For and on behalf of the Ambazonia People’s Liberation Authority

NTUBE FRANCIS ESEME

Secretary General

Head of the APLA Secretariat

AMBAZONIA PEOPLE’S LIBERATION AUTHORITY