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Southern Cameroons Crisis: Jesuit Priest on pilgrimage, prays for reconciliation

17, October 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Jesuit Priest on pilgrimage, prays for reconciliation 0

Carrying only a rucksack, sleeping mat, dressed in black Cassock with his head shaved, Fr. Lado embarked Monday on a 250 km pilgrimage that should take him from Douala to Yaoundé. He wants to draw attention to the suffering brought about by the war in Cameroon, now in its fourth year.

Fr. Lado told Fidespost that his walk was a pilgrimage to pray for dialogue, justice, peace and reconciliation in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon.

“To pray, on the one hand, for dialogue, justice, peace and reconciliation in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon and, on the other hand, to do penance for the reparation of crimes against human dignity committed in these regions. I draw on these Christian values, which are simply human. These are: Fraternity, dialogue, justice, reconciliation and peace,” wrote Fr. Lado recently in an open letter.

Detained in Edéa

On Tuesday, Fr. Lado’s journey was abruptly interrupted when police detained him in Edéa, a city located along the Sanaga River in the Littoral Region. He was later released and is continuing with his walk. After his release, Fr. Lado said he was in good spirits. “I explained to them (police) that I was on a pilgrimage which has a long religious tradition … but they violated my civil rights,” he said.

Support for the education of children of IDPs

Fr. Lado has placed his pilgrimage under the theme, “Where is your brother?” (Gen 4: 9).

“If the Church, the (Cameroonian) authorities and the Ambazonians do not sit around the table to find a solution to this crisis, I will do my part,” said Fr. Lado when he first announced his decision to walk.

Fr. Lado also says he wants to do penance for the reparation of the crimes against human dignity that have been committed during the conflict. “This march,” adds Fr. Lado, “is a call for solidarity to support the education of children of Internally Displaced Persons or refugees, who are living precarious lives.”

Why else I am walking?

“I am walking so that human blood stops flowing in our country. I walk so that the constitutional right to demonstrate peacefully in Cameroon is respected. I walk in solidarity with internally displaced people and refugees from the Anglophone crisis. I walk to exorcise in me and in us the demon of indifference. Walking is not just a human right, but a divine right. I walk to make it work,” explained Fr. Lado.

Fr. Lado said his march is also in solidarity with hundreds detained, in Cameroon, on 22 September, after demonstrations called by the opposition party, the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC). The demonstrators want national dialogue, electoral reforms and the return of peace to the Anglophone regions of the country. The Cameroonian government deems demonstrations in some regions as illegal.

UN Rights Experts condemn government heavy-handedness

The government has been accused of using excessive force and deploying heavily armed security forces to prevent peaceful demonstrations. UN human rights experts, this week, demanded that authorities release the prominent opposition leader and others arrested during the country-wide peaceful protests. They urge the government to stop intimidating political activists.

The experts further want an impartial investigation into all human rights violations, including allegations of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and ill-treatment of protesters, and that perpetrators be brought to justice.

“We are extremely worried about mass arrests of peaceful protesters and political activists who express dissent,” the experts said. More than 500 people were reportedly arrested after opposition-led protests on 22 September. About 200 of these are still being held in detention. They could face terrorism or national security charges and a trial in a military court simply for exercising their fundamental freedoms, said the UN rights experts.

A four-year war that no one is winning

The four-year separatist conflict has created widespread displacement of half a million people. More than 3 000 persons have been killed. Children in the conflict zones have not been able to attend school for close to four years. Earlier this month, some parents and teachers in the conflict zones braved threats from armed groups and reopened some schools.

At the heart of the crisis, in 2016, was a strike by teachers and lawyers, in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The professionals, supported by citizens of their areas, protested the unfair use of the French language and unjustified appointments of French speakers in their territories. Cameroon is a bilingual country. By 2017, the situation had spiralled out of control and developed into a fully-fledged separatist war. Both government forces and separatists are now bogged down in a conflict, that observers say, can only be resolved through dialogue.

Fr. Lado: The outspoken academic

The outspoken and controversial Fr. Lado is not a stranger to the Cameroonian government. He has been raising his voice from about the year 2007 when he was the vice-dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Management at the Catholic University of Central Africa, in Yaoundé. He has also been a critic of Paul Biya who has been President of Cameroon for 38 years.

Fr. Lado holds a doctorate in social and cultural anthropology from the University of Oxford. He has written and spoken on issues of Anthropology, Catholic Pentecostalism, trends in African Catholicism, and on social change in sub-Saharan Africa.

Source: Vatican News

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Soldiers raid Cameroon Concord News Group office in Buea

17, October 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Soldiers raid Cameroon Concord News Group office in Buea 0

Cameroon government army soldiers and members of the National Gendarmerie and other security agencies raided the office of the Cameroon Concord News Group in Buea seizing computers. No reason has so far been given concerning the military operation, but we of the Concord Group believe it is related with our coverage of the Southern Cameroons crisis.

The backbone of any free society is an unbiased, professional, and responsible media. Attacks on the media and press in Cameroon carrying out their daily duties are sadly now a regular occurrence. The regime in Yaoundé is aping the world’s worst with astonishing efficiency and regularity. The evidence of recent months indicates that these attacks are now reaching epidemic proportions.  These must be discontinued.

Last night’s, forcible entry by French Cameroun gendarmes into the Cameroon Concord News Group regional office in Buea is unacceptable and reprehensible. These persistent attacks on our property, staff, the Anglophone press and media in Cameroon are sad, regrettable and a backward step. The prudent course of action for the Cameroon government is to desist from these campaigns of attacks and intimidation. Paul Atanga Nji must know that for Cameroon to enjoy any modicum of respectability on the international stage, freedom of the press and media must be respected within its territory.

These acts of vandalism and intimidation by Cameroon government thugs disguised as law enforcement officers is the third of such intimidation tactics on our property and staff within six months. Yaoundé must be aware that resentment over its treatment of the English media and press fuels the secession struggle in the Southern Cameroons. The excuse for invading our premises in Buea is weak, false, and unacceptable.

Samuel Wazizi and Kingsley Njoka belong to a long line of media and press victims, many of whom will never be reported in the news. The regime in Yaoundé evaluation of the resolve of the media and press in the Southern Cameroons is exceedingly inaccurate.

Cameroon Concord News Group demands the authorities in Cameroon make public any offenses committed by its media personnel or desist from these constant harassments and intimidation. We cannot and would never ignore our responsibility to the Cameroonian public and the world. Our duty as a media organization is to report the news and stimulate debate and no amount of intimidation would deviate us from our duty.

No civilized society can thrive without a free press and media and Cameroon Concord News Group is here to stay.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman and Editor-in-chief

Cameroonian/Congolese US Asylum Seekers: Despite public outcry, many deported on a flight

16, October 2020

Cameroonian/Congolese US Asylum Seekers: Despite public outcry, many deported on a flight 0

Despite a public outcry and and letters from members of Congress calling for it to be stopped, a deportation flight took off on Tuesday afternoon, carrying asylum seekers from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo back to the countries from which they had fled.

Detainees, through their attorneys and other advocates, had raised concerns that they were going to be deported and that they believed they would be killed by their governments after they arrived. Members of Congress, including Rep. Bennie Thompson and Rep. Karen Bass, sent letters to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, asking the agency to stop the deportations. They cited a complaint made by eight men to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties that said they had been forcibly coerced into signing paperwork related to their deportation.

“We urge you to halt the removal of Cameroonians until a fair, thorough, and transparent investigation into the allegations outlined in this very troubling complaint is complete,” Thompson and Bass wrote.

Protesters demonstrated outside the detention center in Texas where the asylum seekers were being held and filmed the buses that took the detainees to the airport.

But that didn’t stop the flight.

The plane left at close to 5 p.m. central time on Tuesday, according to Tom Cartwright, a volunteer with Witness at the Border, an organization that tracks Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights. It stopped in Senegal and then Cameroon before going on to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya, he said.

Not all of the more than 200 Cameroonians and Congolese that detainees said were transferred to a detention facility in Texas to be deported were on the flight. Some of the group remained at Prairieland Detention Center, according to Rebekah Entralgo of Freedom For Immigrants, and a few were pulled from the flight due to individual legal actions taken on their behalf.

It remains unclear exactly how many people were deported on the flight. News articles in Cameroon reported varying numbers of deportees — 57 and 81.

ICE told the Union-Tribune on Monday that the agency could not give information about operations, including deportations that are not yet completed. ICE did not respond to a second request for comment about the deportation flight after it landed.

According to advocates, among those taken off of the flight were two men who were part of the eight who filed the complaint. One of them said his fingers had been broken, and the other said he’d been pepper-sprayed in the eyes. Another man who was part of the eight is also still in ICE custody, advocates said, but the other five are believed to have been deported.

A woman was taken off of the flight because she was identified as a class member in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the practice of limiting how many asylum seekers are processed at ports of entry on a given day, known as metering, as well as its intersection with a Trump administration change to asylum rules known as the third country transit ban. Asylum seekers who were metered before a certain date are not supposed to have the ban applied in their cases, according to the current ruling in the case.

The woman had not passed her screening interview because of the ban, according to court documents, but because of the court ruling she should be given another opportunity to make her case.

Attorneys are concerned that more asylum seekers who were affected by these policies may have been deported on the flight.

Another man was taken off of the flight because a group of Canadian activists convinced officials there to interview him for potential asylum in their country, according to reports from Canadian news outlets.

The client of local attorney Ruth Hargrove was also removed from the flight. She had filed a motion to stay his deportation while the Board of Immigration Appeals decides whether to reopen his case.

After the flight left, Hargrove said, her client’s deportation officer told her that it had been a mistake to take her client off of the flight and that he would soon be deported. ICE didn’t respond to a request for comment on her client’s situation.

According to Hargrove, her client, like many on the flight whose stories are known by attorneys and advocates, was a victim of torture at the hands of his government. She’s still fighting to find a way to protect him, either in the United States or Canada.

“I can’t ever say to him, ‘I’m giving up.’ I say to him that my mantra is what he said to me,” Hargrove said, recounting her client’s daring escape from prison in Cameroon. “What he told me was, ‘I preferred to die getting shot in the back as I ran for my freedom than being forced to kneel and being shot in the back of the head. I prefer to die standing up.’ I said to him, ‘I will keep giving you a voice until I am dead.’”

Advocates are still working to determine what had happened to deportees after they touched down. In Cameroon, they were tested for COVID-19, and those who tested positive were taken to a building near the airport and quarantined for 14 days, according to multiple accounts.

Pat Leach, a volunteer with Freedom For Immigrants who, since January, has become the pen pal of 45 people in immigration custody, said that six people she’d been communicating with were on the flight.

Leach coordinated with Cartwright to communicate with family members to have people ready to try to secure the release of the deportees once they landed.

The Congolese asylum seekers she knew managed to get released, despite a protest rally happening that day near the airport, she said.

Through bribes, family members were able to get a Cameroonian man released from government custody more than 12 hours after the plane landed, Leach said.

“What would have happened to them is they would go from the airport to jail, and jail is where everybody disappears or dies,” Leach said.

She’s still worried the military will go after her friends.

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

France UN Politics: Biya regime rejects UN comments on opposition leader’s ‘house arrest’

16, October 2020

France UN Politics: Biya regime rejects UN comments on opposition leader’s ‘house arrest’ 0

Cameroon on Thursday described as “biased” comments by UN experts claiming the main opposition leader Maurice Kamto was under house arrest, and accusing Yaounde of “excessive force” in recent demonstrations.

Kamto is the chief opponent of President Biya, who has ruled the Central African country for 38 years. His house has been surrounded by police for 24 days.

The opposition politician told AFP on Tuesday by phone that he was still being prevented from leaving and was “sequestered”, without any notification from the authorities.

A court hearing which was to rule on a complaint by Kamto’s lawyers for “administrative assault” has been postponed until October 20, an AFP journalist learned on Thursday.

UN rights experts on Monday called for Kamto’s release from house arrest for calling for peaceful protests against Biya. They also called for the release of dozens of others reportedly arrested during demonstrations on September 22.

In a statement received on Thursday by AFP, the government called the UN experts’ comments “subjective and biased” and accused them of having relaying and amplifying “untruths”.

It alleged that Kamto and his associates had defied laws and regulations by “violating the ban on public demonstration”.

“Faced with such threats to public order, it was naturally incumbent on the public authorities to take the necessary measures to deal with the situation, which has been done,” the statement said, without elaborating.

Of 294 arrested supporters of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) led by Kamto, it added that 176 had been released.

“Nine people… formally identified as being leaders, planners or organiser of insurrectional marches are currently in the hands of justice,” the statement said.

Some 109 people were also brought before courts in the economic capital Douala and western Bafoussam.

Kamto officially lost to Biya in 2018’s presidential election, and was arrested in January last year following a march protesting the vote. Biya ordered him freed nine months later under international pressure.

On September 18 of this year he called for mass protests to demand electoral reforms as well as a ceasefire in the country’s insurgency-hit English-speaking areas.

Four days later, police crushed a demonstration in the country’s economic capital Douala, detaining 93 protesters of whom 58 were still in custody as of Tuesday, according to their lawyers. They were among more than 500 people arrested across the country.

Source: AFP

Burkina Faso: Attacks in the north leave more than a dozen dead

16, October 2020

Burkina Faso: Attacks in the north leave more than a dozen dead 0

Jihadists have killed around 20 people in attacks in three villages in northern Burkina Faso, the epicentre of a five-year-old jihadist insurgency, government officials said on Thursday.

The attacks took place on Wednesday in the villages of Demniol, Bombofa and Peteguerse in Seno province, government spokesman Remis Fulgance Dandjinou said in a statement.

“The provisional count of these attacks perpetrated in markets and villages shows about 20 victims, as well as wounded and missing persons,” he said.

Regional governor Salfo Kabore confirmed the attack in another statement.

An area resident told AFP at least 24 people were killed in the attacks.

“Wednesday is the day of the weekly market in the area,” said the resident, adding that the toll could be much higher as many people were still missing.

“The government condemns these cowardly and barbaric attacks against the peaceful civilian population,” said Dandjinou, adding that security forces have been deployed to the three villages.

Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, is being battered by a jihadist insurgency that came in from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

Hundreds have been killed in dozens of attacks on civilians this year.

Earlier this month 25 civilians, most of them people displaced by jihadist violence, were killed in an ambush in the central-north of the country, according to the UN’s refugee agency.

According to UN figures, around 4,000 people died from violence in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso last year.

Source: AFP

US Politics: Trump and Biden trade jibes in competing town halls on night of cancelled debate

16, October 2020

US Politics: Trump and Biden trade jibes in competing town halls on night of cancelled debate 0

President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden squared off, in a way, Thursday night in dueling televised town halls that showcased striking differences in temperament, views on racial justice and approaches to a pandemic that has reshaped the nation.

Coming just two and a half weeks before Election Day, the night offered crystalizing contrasts and a national, if divided, audience. But it seemed unlikely to have produced a needed moment for a president running out of time or opportunities to appeal beyond his core base.

He was defensive about his administration’s handling of the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 215,000 American lives, and evasive when pressed about whether he took a required COVID-19 test before his first debate with Biden. Angry and combative, Trump refused to denounce the QAnon conspiracy group — and only testily did so regarding white supremacists.

The president also appeared to acknowledge revelations from a recent New York Times report that he was in debt and left open the possibility that some of it was owed to a foreign bank. But he insisted that he didn’t owe any money to Russia or any “sinister people” and suggested that $400 million in debt was a “very, very small percentage” compared to his overall assets.

Biden denounced the White House’s handling of the virus, declaring that it was at fault for closing a pandemic response office established by the Obama administration in which he served. Though vague at times, he suggested he will offer clarity on his position on expanding the Supreme Court if Trump’s nominee to the bench is seated before Election Day.

After Biden’s 90-minute town hall event formally concluded, the candidate spent another half hour taking questions from those in the audience who didn’t get an opportunity during the televised program.

Trump and Biden were supposed to spend Thursday night on the same debate stage in Miami. But that faceoff was scuttled after Trump’s coronavirus infection, which jolted the race and threatened the health of the American president.

Trump wouldn’t say whether he had tested negative on the day of his first debate with Biden on Sept. 29, allowing only “possibly I did, possibly I didn’t.” Debate rules required that each candidate, using the honor system, had tested negative prior to the Cleveland event, but Trump spoke in circles when asked when he last tested negative.

The presidential rivals took questions in different cities on different networks: Trump on NBC from Miami, Biden on ABC from Philadelphia. Trump backed out of plans for the presidential faceoff originally scheduled for the evening after debate organizers said it would be held virtually following his COVID-19 diagnosis.

The town halls offered a different format for the two candidates to present themselves to voters, after the pair held a chaotic and combative first debate late last month. The difference in the men’s tone was immediate and striking.

Trump was Trump. He was loud and argumentative, rebuking his FBI director, fighting with the host, Savannah Guthrie, complaining about the questioning — and eventually saying for the first time that he would honor the results of a fair election, but only after casting an extraordinary amount of doubt on the likeliness of fairness.

“And then they talk ‘Will you accept a peaceful transfer,’” Trump said. “And the answer is, ‘Yes, I will.’ But I want it to be an honest election, and so does everybody else.”

He again sought to minimize revelations from a New York Times investigation that he has more than $400 million in debt and suggested that reports are wrong that he paid little or no federal income taxes in most years over the past two decades.

Biden meanwhile, took a far different, softer, approach with audience questions. The former vice president, who struggled growing up with a stutter, stuttered slightly at the start of the program and at one point squeezed his eyes shut and slowed down his response to clearly enunciate his words. At times his answers droned on.

Holding a white cloth mask in one hand, the Democratic nominee also brought a small card of notes on stage and referred to it while promising to roll back tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. He said doing so would save, as he consulted his notes, “let me see… $92 billion.”

Biden vowed to say before Election Day whether he will support expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court if Democrats win the presidency, the Senate and hold the House after November.

He has for weeks refused to answer the question but went further Thursday night. He said, “I’m still not a fan” of expanding the court, but that his ultimate decision depended on how the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court “is handled” and “how much they rush this.”

Biden also blasted Trump’s foreign policy, declaring that “‘America first’ has made ‘America alone’” and “This president embraces all the thugs in the world.” He turned introspective when asked what it would say if he lost.

“It could say that I’m a lousy candidate, that I didn’t do a good job,” Biden said. “But I think, I hope that it doesn’t say that we’re as racially, ethnically and religiously at odds as it appears the president wants us to be.”

Biden said he plans to participate in next week’s debate but that he would ask Trump to take a COVID-19 test before arriving. “It’s just decency” for everyone around him, including non-candidates like camera operators, Biden said.

The two men are still scheduled to occupy the same space for a debate for a second and final time next week in Nashville.

Source: AP

US: 100+ Cameroonian Asylum Seekers Deported Despite Fear of Being Killed

15, October 2020

US: 100+ Cameroonian Asylum Seekers Deported Despite Fear of Being Killed 0

Over 100 asylum seekers from Cameroon were deported en masse Tuesday afternoon, despite congressional intervention and efforts from activists, who held an action at the Fort Worth Alliance Airport in Texas to try to stop the deportation flights. Among those deported were several leaders of a hunger strike at Pine Prairie Detention Center in Louisiana and two Cameroonian women who fear they were unknowingly subjected to forced sterilizations at Irwin Detention Center in Georgia.

Immigration rights groups say ICE agents coerced the asylum seekers into signing their deportation orders after months of torture and abuse. The asylum seekers say they were held in solitary confinement after joining hunger strikes. Many of them fear they’ll be killed upon their arrival to Cameroon.

Source: Democracynow

Cameroonian asylum seekers pulled off deportation plane amid allegations of ICE abuse

15, October 2020

Cameroonian asylum seekers pulled off deportation plane amid allegations of ICE abuse 0

Two Cameroonian men slated for deportation from the United States were pulled off an ICE flight moments before takeoff on Tuesday as part of an investigation into abuse they alleged they endured in U.S. custody, according to an ICE official with direct knowledge of the incident and immigration advocates.

The two men are part of a group of eight Cameroonian asylum seekers who alleged ICE coerced them into signing their deportation documents through force, including the use of pepper spray. Others who alleged abuse were never taken to the airport, their lawyers told NBC News. It is not clear, however, if any of the eight have been deported.

The allegations were detailed in a complaint brought on behalf of the men by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Freedom for Immigrants, the Cameroonian American Council and others and sent to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties section.

“I can’t see well still from the pepper spray. As a result of the physical violence, they were able to forcibly obtain my fingerprint on the document,” one of the men, who remained anonymous, said in the complaint.

In response to the allegations in the complaint, ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said: “ICE does not comment on specific matters presented to the Office of the Inspector General, which provides independent oversight and accountability within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That said, in general, sensationalist unsubstantiated allegations are irresponsible, and should be treated with the greatest of skepticism.”

He added: “ICE is firmly committed to the safety and welfare of all those in its custody. ICE provides safe, humane, and appropriate conditions of confinement for individuals detained in its custody.”

An ICE official said some of the men were kept back in order to be interviewed by the investigating agencies, but that does not mean they will not be deported at a later date.

Human rights groups say those deported are likely to face grave risks upon their return to Cameroon, including the threat of execution.

“Our government utterly failed to provide these individuals the safety and refuge they came looking for,” said Luz Lopez, senior supervising attorney with Southern Poverty Law Center‘s Immigrant Justice Project. “They fled persecution only to be met with ICE detention and a one way flight back to being in harm’s way.”

Source: NBC News

Cameroonians Neglect Covid-19 Safety Precautions

15, October 2020

Cameroonians Neglect Covid-19 Safety Precautions 0

Residents of major cities in Cameroon have not been serious with social distancing measures and wearing of face masks.

Despite efforts by the government to prevent Covid-19 hugging, handshaking and the belief that the disease has not yet arrived Cameroon is the main talk on the streets.

The non respect of social distancing can be observed in markets; streets and parks.

“There are a bunch of Cameroonians from the start of this who thought that corona was a hoax. And many of them have never won a mask even for once. And till date they say that naturally an African is built to kill viruses. So they believe that their systems can even kill the viruses if it exists”, Wain George Muam, a concerned Cameroonian, told Africanews.

The Cameroon government has been conducting mobile Covid-19 screening in various cities across the country. The virus keeps circulating despite the high rate of healing in Cameroon.

Track, Test and Treat

Mobile screening is part of the governments’ (Track, Test and Treat) strategy. Few months back rapid test kits were made available making it possible to carry out more tests.

Cameroon’s Public Health Emergency Research Centre is aware of the negligence among the population.

“The community has realized that we have a high rate of healing as you mentioned. We have a very small number of people dying. And therefore they are relaxed because they no longer fear as it was the case when we were in early March” alerts Prof Yap Boum, the deputy head of the centre.

Daily Press briefings are organised by the Covid-19 coordination centre to keep Cameroonians updated on the evolution of the disease and the need to respect barrier measures.

“But what we are doing is actually trying to understand what is happening, and to achieve that we do what we call a cap survey. So we go to the field, we talk to the community and we try to understand what is their real understanding of the disease and where they are getting their information. And then that helps us now to go back and to reinforce the sensitization”, Prof Yap Boum added.

With a recovery rate of 94.9% and a fatality rate of around 2% public health officials in Cameroon satisfied with the results so far, keep calling for extra vigilance.

It is not yet clear why the healing rate remains high among those suffering from the Covid-19 in Cameroon. Scientists are investigating if this is linked to a boosted immunity, numerous tropical diseases or the youthful nature of the population.

Source: Africa News

Deportation of Cameroonian Asylum Seekers: US makes a dramatic regression in the protection of human rights

15, October 2020

Deportation of Cameroonian Asylum Seekers: US makes a dramatic regression in the protection of human rights 0

On the 14th of October 2020, an airplane carrying onboard over 100 asylum seekers from the United States landed in the Douala International Airport in Cameroon into the waiting hands of the Cameroonian authorities stationed at the airport. Their fate is now a mystery.

Leaving one’s home country as a migrant to settle in and start living in another country has always been a challenging venture. It becomes not only challenging but difficult, daunting, and risky when you must flee from your country without prior notice due to persecution or war. Danger or menace to one’s life or that of your family members is a major reason for fleeing these days. One, therefore, flees from danger from their home country to become a refugee by seeking asylum.

The word ‘Asylum’ is a Latin form of the Greek word ‘asylon’ which in English means ‘freedom from…’ It is true that in International Law, states are not bound by any obligation to grant asylum to a refugee. However, nations are bound by the principle of non- refoulement as defined in article 33 of the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees which prohibits the expulsion or return of refugees to areas they have fled from.

The case in hand is, therefore, a flagrant violation of the above-named convention. The United States should know better. It is rewarding that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Germany, and many EU nations, still hold close to their hearts the protection of human rights and freedoms especially those of refugees and asylum seekers.

It has been before now, common knowledge that the United States, Britain, and France as allies, are among the best in the world when it comes to the protection of human rights and freedoms as well as the protection of refugees and asylum seekers. This writer is confident that if this were in the United Kingdom, the outcome would have been different at least not until all due processes followed and with strict respect for the rule of law.

With the recent deportation of vulnerable asylum seekers by the United States government to Cameroon, the United States has moved one step away from this prestigious circle of rights defenders. It is no news anywhere in the world that what is going on in the former British Southern Cameroons in particular, and Cameroon in general does not only constitute human rights abuses but genocide in gestation.

This writer has reason to believe that by this singular act, the US has shown the world that it partners the dictatorial regime in Yaoundé. What other reason can be given to justify sending asylum seekers back to a country they have fled from in the middle of a war?

It is equally worth noting that this group of mostly Former British Southern Cameroons asylum seekers was deliberately transferred months ago by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the T. Don Hutto Residential Centre in Taylor, Texas. A detention facility that has been noted and stands out for its several allegations of human rights abuses and other degrading treatments of refugees and asylum seekers.

Based on recent figures from the UN High Commissioner for refugees, there has been a 56% increase in the number of people seeking political asylum from the Cameroons. And that number has increased since November 2016 due to the ongoing war in Former British Southern Cameroons.

It remains really strange and inexplicable how with all the statistics and evidence available on the ongoing crisis in Cameroon, and despite letters from some congressmen and women asking for the process to be delayed for more evidence, the Texas officials succeeded in deporting helpless asylum seekers to Cameroon, a country where the abuse of human rights has become a norm and a daily occurrence. 

This process of deportation has smeared the dreadful image of the United States’ already injured human rights image. The country has missed an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that it does not side with the regime Yaoundé regime.

Nelson Agbor is an International Human Rights Law Scholar. He holds a Master of Laws (LLM), from Hertfordshire Law School, UK. He is currently a Doctoral Research Student, International Human Rights Law at Plymouth University, UK.

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