As Cameroonian journalist Amadou Vamoulké “celebrates” his 72nd birthday today in so-called “preventive” detention, in which he has now spent more than 2,000 days, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its appeal to the UN to do everything possible to obtain his release given his extremely fragile state of health and urgent need of treatment.

As well as spending his birthday like most days, in the main prison in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, Vamoulké is also due to spend part of it at the Special Criminal Court (TCS) for his 99th appearance there since his arrest in July 2016. Because of the imminent threats to his health, RSF has referred the case to the urgent attention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, nearly two years after an initial urgent appeal that went unanswered.

RSF has asked the Special Rapporteur to intervene as soon as possible in favour of an emergency evacuation for medical reasons, and has provided details of Vamoulké’s extreme vulnerability due to his age, his poor conditions of detention and the serious neurological illness diagnosed in September 2019. And RSF reminds the Special Rapporteur that, despite medical reports attesting that Vamoulké’s condition requires urgent and appropriate care that cannot be provided in Cameroon, he has repeatedly and deliberately been refused such care by the Cameroonian authorities.

“As Amadou Vamoulké spends another birthday in prison, we urge the UN to press the Cameroonian authorities to release him before it is too late,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “The authorities continue to ignore repeated calls for this journalist’s release despite the extreme fragility of his state of health, his age and his imprisonment during a global pandemic. The rapid spread of Covid-19 in Cameroon’s overcrowded prisons and his status as a vulnerable person with regard to this virus expose him to the possibility of irreparable damage to his health and constitute grounds for his immediate release.”

Vamoulké has spent more than five and a half years in “provisional” detention since his arrest on 29 July 2016 on the basis of claims that he misspent government funds as director-general of the state radio and TV broadcaster CRTV. Despite nearly 100 hearings, all adjourned, prosecutors have been unable to produce any evidence or testimony to support these allegations.

RSF has taken many initiatives with both Cameroonian and international authorities with the aim of obtaining this journalist’s release. Following an RSF referral, his detention was deemed to be arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in June 2020. In this decision, the Working Group also said he had been deliberately denied medical care and announced that it was submitting the case to the Special Rapporteur on the right to health because of the urgency of his medical situation. RSF had already contacted this Special Rapporteur in May 2020. However, despite these requests and the urgency of the situation, no response has so far been provided by the Special Rapporteur. Cameroon is ranked 135th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

Culled from RSF

It is no longer news to highlight that Cameroonian leaders are oppressive, and they rule not to bring prosperity and happiness to their people but to line their pockets and oppress their people.

The Southern Cameroons crisis, which has played out for more than five years and has consumed thousands of lives, is unquestionably the outcome of government policies and decisions designed to marginalize a section of the country’s population. 

Much infrastructure has been ruined during the fighting and confidence in the government is at its lowest.

Millions of Southern Cameroonians have lost faith in the government, and it is incumbent upon the government to rebuild that confidence, especially by reviewing the current political dispensation which leaves much to be desired.

It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that the conflict, which has killed thousands and ruined the economy of the two English-speaking regions of the country, is addressed. Its silence over the last five years seems to be deliberate and it is unfortunately not golden.

However, the government alone cannot bring about peace in Cameroon. It needs responsible and honesty parties for it to play its role. The Southern Cameroons revolution which started with a protest by lawyers and teachers seems to be bereft of honest and well-intentioned leaders.  

Over the last three years, those who lay claim to the leadership of a revolution which started in 2017, have clearly demonstrated their greed.

The unquestionable honesty and leadership demonstrated by people like Dr. Fontem Neba, Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor-Balla and Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe when the revolution was in its embryonic phase, has slowly but surely given way to incredible dishonesty. 

Today, the revolution is being considered as a milking cow by the leaders who spend most of their time fighting each other because they want to be in control of the resources placed at their disposal by the Southern Cameroonian Diaspora. 

But more dangerous is the ignorance that is playing out on Ground Zero. The rogues who pass off as fighters have shot the revolution in its leg.

Many Southern Cameroonians have carefully jumped ship because of the ignorance many of those who claim they are fighting to liberate the population are displaying. 

The rogues now kill for money. Kidnapping has become a lucrative business and this is sometimes fostered by the leaders leaving in the safety and comfort of the United States and other Western countries.

When a revolution is designed and implemented by illiterate criminals, it is doomed to failure.

These illiterate criminals are destroying anything in their path. Schools, hospitals, and government offices are all being burnt by people who do not even understand how development plays out. Who destroys his own infrastructure because he is angry with the government?

Today, the Queen of the Rosary Secondary School (QRC), Okoyong, Manyu, Division, one of Cameroon’s best girls’ schools, has been torched by these miscreants who clearly belong to a different epoch.

Their excuse is that the students were practicing to participate in Youth Day celebrations. If these so-called fighters were worth their salt, why could they not go to the grandstand to disrupt Youth Day activities? 

The Cameroon Concord News Group strongly condemns this irresponsibility, and it is urging QRC past students across the globe to organize a massive fundraising campaign which will make it possible to replace what has been destroyed by those “sons of Satan”.

The Cameroon Concord News Group pledges its support to OPSANs whenever they launch this fundraiser to rebuild the school. QRC has produced some of the brightest minds in Cameroon and it deserves our support. 

By Joachim Arrey in Canada and Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in the United Kingdom

Cameroonian authorities subjected dozens of asylum seekers deported by the United States to serious human rights violations between 2019 and 2021, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 149-page report, “‘How Can You Throw Us Back?’: Asylum Seekers Abused in the US and Deported to Harm in Cameroon,” traces what happened to the estimated 80 to 90 Cameroonians deported from the United States on two flights in October and November 2020, and others deported in 2021 and 2019. People returned to Cameroon faced arbitrary arrest and detention; enforced disappearances; torture, rape, and other violence; extortion; unfair prosecutions; confiscation of their national IDs; harassment; and abuses against their relatives. Many also reported experiencing excessive force, medical neglect, and other mistreatment in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the US.

“The US government utterly failed Cameroonians with credible asylum claims by sending them back to harm in the country they fled, as well as mistreating already traumatized people before and during deportation,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Cameroon and US governments need to remedy these abuses, and US authorities should provide opportunities for wrongly deported Cameroonians to return and reapply for asylum.”

By returning Cameroonians to face persecution, torture, and other serious harm, the US violated the principle of nonrefoulement, a cornerstone of international refugee and human rights law.

Between December 2020 and January 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed 41 deported Cameroonian asylum seekers, 4 asylum seekers in the US, and 54 other people in the US and Cameroon, including relatives and friends of those deported, witnesses to abuses, lawyers, immigrant rights activists, and experts. Human Rights Watch collected and analyzed US asylum and immigration documents of deported people, as well as photographs, videos, recordings, and medical and legal documents corroborating accounts of mistreatment in Cameroon.

Cameroon has faced humanitarian crises in several regions in recent years. Respect for human rights has deteriorated and the government has increasingly cracked down on opposition and dissent. Violence since late 2016 by government forces and armed separatist groups in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions has caused mass displacement, as have intercommunal violence and ongoing conflict with Boko Haram in the Far North region.

“We put all our hope in the USA when we went to seek refuge,” said a 37-year-old man who was deported to Cameroon in October 2020. “We did not imagine the US would return us like that.” He spent nearly three years in US immigration detention and was arbitrarily detained in Cameroon after his return. He remains in hiding.

The people interviewed were deported during the Trump administration, which was characterized by hardline immigration policies, narrowed access to asylum, and racist, anti-migrant rhetoric. Though conditions in Cameroon had not improved, the grant rate for asylum or other protection for Cameroonians by US immigration courts dropped by 24 percent between fiscal years 2019 and 2020. The US deported over 100 Cameroonians in 2020.

The Biden administration took the positive step of cancelling a February 2021 deportation flight to Cameroon. However, it deported several Cameroonians in October 2021 and has failed to designate Temporary Protected Status for Cameroon, despite conditions making return unsafe.

Nearly all of the deported people interviewed had fled Cameroon between 2017 and 2020 for reasons linked to the crisis in the Anglophone regions. Human Rights Watch research indicates that many had credible asylum claims, but due process concerns, fact-finding inaccuracies, and other issues contributed to unfair asylum decisions. Lack of impartiality by US immigration judges – who are part of the executive branch, not the independent judiciary – appeared to play a role. Nearly all of the deported Cameroonians interviewed – 35 of 41 – were assigned to judges with asylum denial rates 10 to 30 percentage points higher than the national average.

ICE also failed to protect confidential asylum documents during deportations, leading to document confiscation and apparent retribution by Cameroonian authorities.

Between 2019 and 2021, Cameroonian police, gendarmes, military personnel, and other officials detained or imprisoned at least 39 people deported from the US. Authorities detained many without due process or in inhumane conditions, for periods ranging from days to months. Some were held incommunicado.

Human Rights Watch documented 14 cases of physical abuse or assault of 13 deported people, 13 by Cameroonian authorities – including 9 in detention – and 1 by armed separatists. State agents raped three women in custody, subjected a man to forced labor, and severely beat returnees, often during interrogations. Several of these cases amount to torture.

A woman deported in October 2020 said she was tortured and raped by gendarmes or military men during six weeks in detention in Bamenda, North-West region: “Every two days … they were using ropes, [rubber] tubes, their boots, military belts … They hit me all over my body. They said that I’ve destroyed the image of Cameroon … so I had to pay for it.”

State agents harmed or targeted the family members of at least seven deported people. While looking for returnees, government forces allegedly shot and killed a woman’s sister, abducted a man’s 11-year-old son, and severely beat a man’s mother. Others were arbitrarily detained, extorted, and harassed.

Cameroonian authorities threatened and abused returnees not only for reasons linked to why they initially fled, but also for seeking asylum in the US, and for actual or imputed opposition to the government. “[Officials] said … ‘You people left here, you ran … to the US, telling lies about the government,’” said a woman deported in October 2020.

Nearly everyone interviewed also cited mistreatment during US immigration detention, transfers, or ICE flights. ICE detained all but one of the 41 asylum seekers interviewed for prolonged and unnecessary periods, an average of 1.5 years. Human Rights Watch documented 24 cases of alleged excessive force, cruel or inhuman treatment, or other physical abuse by ICE officers, other officials, or ICE contractors against 18 Cameroonians subsequently deported.

Deported Cameroonians have yet to receive a remedy for harms experienced. As of January, many remained in grave danger in Cameroon or struggled to survive after fleeing again. Human Rights Watch and members of the Cameroon Advocacy Network (CAN), a coalition of immigrant rights groups and Cameroonian immigrants in the US, urged the US government to grant Cameroonians deported between 2020 and 2021 humanitarian parole to return to the US for “urgent humanitarian reasons.”

“The suffering that Cameroonians deported by the US have been through is heartbreaking and makes it crystal clear that Cameroon is not safe for return,” said Daniel Tse, CAN coordinator. “If the Biden administration hopes to make the US immigration system more humane, it should rectify the wrongs done to Cameroonian asylum seekers and halt deportations to Cameroon.”

Quotes from the report

All of those quoted are identified with pseudonyms for their safety.

On post-deportation abuses in Cameroon

“Paul,” deported in October 2020: In January 2021, military personnel assaulted Paul, deported in October 2020, at his mother’s home in the South-West region. “Four military guys broke the door and came inside…. They started beating me…. They said, ‘You were deported from America?… You are the ones sponsoring the Amba [separatist] fighters.’”

“Marie,” deported in October 2020: In January 2021, men in black uniforms assaulted Marie at a checkpoint en route to Bamenda. “They started beating me… They said, ‘Here’s the Ambazonian … destroying the name of the country.’… They used some whip … on my neck and back… They slapped me … I fell on the ground. They … kicked me … the pain was too much.”

“Richard,” deported in October 2020, said at New Bell prison in Douala, from October to November 2020: “I was kept in a dark room, only given two slices of bread for the whole day … [Officers] beat me … [with] batons … and a military belt … and their cutlasses … I was tortured for 14 days, every day, three times a day… They were making me feel that’s the end of my life.”

“George,” deported in October 2020: Military men severely beat his 60-year-old mother in the South-West region in December 2020. “Since they could not find me … five of them were beating her … with a military belt… She fell down crying, so then they kicked her… They were hitting her with sticks… They left her to lie there… People in village came and took her to the hospital.”

On ICE failure to protect confidential asylum documents

“Maxwell,” deported October 2020: “When we were leaving … I was shouting and screaming that I need to take some documents out of my bags, but [ICE] never gave me any attention. In Cameroon, when we arrived … [police] asked, ‘Did you ask for asylum in America?’ I said no… [T]hey said I should shut up, that I was lying, because they found every piece of paperwork in my bag … proving that I asked for asylum.”

On abuses during US immigration detention and deportations

“Thierry,” deported October 2020: “I went to the US to seek asylum for the persecution I experienced in my country. I was just so sad, because I did 2 years 10 months [in detention], and I am not a criminal.”

“Christian,” deported October 2020, said at a US immigration detention center: “They put me face down on the ground. One ICE officer put his knee on my neck, pushing with so much pressure … I was crying. I said, ‘Please, please, I can’t breathe.’… They forced me inside the game room …, forced my head onto the ping-pong table … Some were hitting me. One twisted my arm … like he was going to break it…. They took my fingerprint by force.”

“Robert,” deported November 2020: “[ICE] put me in a ‘Wrap’ [or similar full-body restraint] because I was refusing to get in the plane… [T]hey tie your legs and your hands, each is connected to each and you can’t sit up straight. It’s a form of punishment…. I told them God will judge them. The ICE officers told me I should go to hell, that whatever complaint I do, the case will go nowhere.”

On unfair US asylum denials

“Richard,” deported October 2020: “When you’re trying to give an explanation of what happened, [the asylum officer] wouldn’t give you an opportunity. He would just say, ‘OK, OK’… Sometimes he would speak so fast that I didn’t understand, and he would threaten, ‘This is the last time I’m repeating myself,’ and if I don’t give him answers … he will not interview me anymore. I was so tense.”

“Michael,” deported November 2020: “I wasn’t understanding the [immigration] judge or government lawyer sometimes, and sometimes they didn’t understand me… They would say ‘speak louder,’ and if I said I didn’t understand …, they thought maybe I wanted to escape from the question.”

Culled from Human Rights Watch

The Special Criminal Court will order the arrest of several Cameroon government authorities in the coming days as the 88-year-old President Biya vowed that those responsible for dubious award of contracts in the buildup to the Africa Cup of Nations and the Covid-19 pandemic will pay a heavy price.

The corruption came amid a period of political turmoil in Southern Cameroons that critics blame on Biya’s increasingly authoritarian rule and the fight against the Nigerian Islamic terror group Boko Haram. Staying in power by rigging every election, Biya has shaken up his government, arrested several prominent figures, cracked down on dissidents, restricted the news media and renewed fighting with Boko Haram and Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

The Yaoundé regime has also come under pressure from the thousands of refugees in the Far North region who have fled violence in Northern Nigeria, and a series of bloody attacks between the Arab shoa and Kotoko ethnic groups.

A source at the office of the presidency, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with CPDM rules said, the Special Criminal Court will also target the leadership of the Cameroon Development Cooperation (CDC) in Southern Cameroons.

Our chief Yaoundé informant has described the upcoming anti corruption operation as massive and said those found guilty will receive every punishment they deserve. The government will also be pressing ahead with a purge of judicial and police officials.

By Rita Akana in Yaoundé

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government (IG) has denounced the recent French Cameroun military deployment to Southern Cameroons, calling on the Yaoundé regime to withdraw its forces from the Federal Republic of Ambazonia before it gets too late.

Vice President Dabney Yerima, in a statement released on Monday, demanded that the French Cameroun regime stop repeated violations of Southern Cameroons sovereignty and deadly raids on ordinary Ambazonian citizens and fully withdraw Francophone army soldiers from Southern Cameroons soil.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader stated that Ambazonian patience has reached its limit and the continued massacre of innocent Southern Cameroons lives and violations of Southern Cameroons sovereignty were the last straw.

“Ambazonia fighters, which dispelled the myth about La Republique du Cameroun’s military and is subjecting them to humiliation has recommended that Yaoundé should pull out its troops before it is too late,” Yerima warned.

Late on Sunday, the Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs said Ambazonia fighters will give an adequate response to the latest French Cameroun military aggression in Mezam County.

Cameroon Concord News understands the situation in Southern Cameroons has exacerbated and ordinary Anglophone citizens are now being targeted under flimsy claims and pretexts by the Francophone dominated Cameroon government army.

By Isong Asu

The Committee to Protect Journalists on Thursday, February 3, joined 26 other civil society organizations in calling on President Paul Biya to release all those arbitrarily detained in Cameroon for acts of free expression, including at least four journalists.

The open letter, published during the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon, notes that the continent’s premier football tournament masks the reality that over 100 people have been detained, most for more than a year, and some for over five years, for simply “peacefully exercising their human rights.”

Journalists Thomas Awah Junior, Mancho Bibixy, Tsi Conrad, and Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka are detained on anti-state charges in Yaounde’s overcrowded Kondengui Central Prison, as documented in CPJ’s annual census of jailed journalists around the world.

The organizations also urged Biya to reform the laws currently used to criminalize protest and public assembly, including the country’s controversial anti-terror law that is used to silence critics and suppress dissent, as documented in a 2017 special report by CPJ.

Cameroonian soldiers killed at least eight people and burned down dozens of homes and shops during three separate military operations in the North-West English-speaking region in December 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. The dead included three children, two women, and an older man.

“Cameroon’s security forces have again shown disregard for human life during their recent operations in the North-West region,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The killings of civilians, including children, are serious crimes that should be credibly and independently investigated, and those responsible held to account.”

On December 8, 2021, in response to an attack on a military convoy by armed separatist fighters, soldiers killed two teenage boys, ages 16 and 17, and a 70-year-old man, and burned at least 35 private homes and shops along Mbengwi Road in Bamenda, the capital city of the North-West region.

On December 10, soldiers from the elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (Battaillon d’intervention rapide, BIR) searched door-to-door in Chomba village, about 10 kilometers from Bamenda in a separatist-held area. The soldiers gathered about 80 residents in the village square, accused them of harboring separatist fighters, and threatened them with death. The soldiers forcibly disappeared four villagers, two of them women, during the raid. They were found dead on December 29, with apparent gunshot wounds to their heads.

On December 22, soldiers shot and killed a 3-year-old girl and injured a 17-year-old girl in Bamenda’s Ngomgham neighborhood, following an alleged attack earlier that day by armed separatist fighters.

Between December 19 and January 12, 2022, Human Rights Watch interviewed by telephone 19 people, including seven witnesses to the arson attack on Mbengwi Road, who also lost their property; four witnesses to the military operation in Chomba, and two medical workers at Bamenda’s regional hospital where the bodies of the two teenage boys were deposited and where the 70-year-old man was treated and died. Human Rights Watch also interviewed two relatives of the girl killed and the 17-year-old girl injured in Ngomgham neighborhood, a local journalist who investigated that attack, and three residents of the North-West region with knowledge of the three incidents.

Human Rights Watch also reviewed satellite imagery showing over 35 buildings affected by fire along Mbengwi Road and 19 videos shared directly with Human Rights Watch researchers and posted on social media platforms indicating extensive destruction of property there. Human Rights Watch reviewed hospital bills and two photographs of the 17-year-old girl and a video showing the bodies of the four people found in Chomba and three photographs of their burial.

On January 21, Human Rights Watch shared its findings with the army spokesperson, Col. Cyrille Serge Atonfack Guemo, requesting responses to specific questions. Guemo did not reply.

In a news release on December 10, the Cameroonian Ministry of Defence claimed that separatist fighters ambushed a BIR unit with an improvised explosive device on December 8 in Bamenda’s Nitop neighborhood and that a confrontation between the soldiers and the separatists ensued. The spokesperson for the ministry denied that security forces torched any homes or shops, claiming instead that a separatist warehouse storing “components used in making improvised explosive devices” exploded “during the gun battle,” causing “a shock wave on a few nearby houses.” He also said that an investigation had been opened into “the unfortunate incident.”

Human Rights Watch analysis of satellite imagery recorded before and after the reported arson attack indicates that at least 35 structures were damaged by fire, some of which appear to have been completely reduced to ash while others appear to have burn scars on their roofs. The burned structures are along both sides of Mbengwi Road, showing distinct damaged areas. This pattern suggests that distinct fires were set in individual structures and that the damage was not the result of the expansion of a larger fire or explosion as the Ministry of Defence claimed. Human Rights Watch also believes its analysis of the damage is most likely an underestimate as the satellite imagery does not show internal damage to buildings.

“I lost my entire house, and I am now homeless,” a 55-year-old trader who lived on Mbengwi Road told Human Rights Watch. “I saw up to 30 soldiers, including from the BIR. They were shooting and burning. In my home, everything was burned: all the kitchen stuff, books, mattresses, chairs, tables, clothes, bed sheets, blankets. They burned room by room.”

National and international media outlets as well as Cameroonian and international human rights organizations reported the arson attack on Mbengwi Road. In a December 10 joint report, the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, a Cameroonian rights group, and the Database of Atrocities, a research project led by volunteers and researchers from several international universities, documented the widespread burning of buildings along Mbengwi Road on December 8 by government forces. This report referenced several videos shared on social media showing burning buildings, the locations of which were identified and shared online by researcher Israel Ayongwa. The report also stated that a witness “saw the corpses of two boys at a burned metal workshop.”

The incidents in December follow previous spates of violence and human rights violations by government forces during the crisis in the Anglophone regions, most of which have gone unpunished. Human Rights Watch has documented extensive burning of villages by members of the security forces between 2017 and 2021 in both the North-West and South-West English-speaking regions, as well as killings and mistreatment of civilians. Armed separatist groups have also committed abuses, including killings, kidnappings, and widespread attacks on education.

On December 5, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued a resolution expressing “concern about the deteriorating human rights situation” in Cameroon and calling on the government to “authorize a fact-finding mission into the country, to enable the Commission [to] ascertain the violations alleged.”

“The Cameroonian government’s failure to hold its security forces to account for past abuses has only encouraged soldiers to commit further heinous crimes,” Allegrozzi said. “To stop this impunity and help pave the way for justice, the government should facilitate full access and cooperation to allow independent experts from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to investigate the alleged crimes.”

For more details on recent abuses and accounts from victims and witnesses, please see below.

Military Attack Along Bamenda’s Mbengwi Road (December 8, 2021)

Killings

During the attack, soldiers killed three people, including two teenage boys, ages 16 and 17, who were working as apprentices in a welder workshop, and an older man who lived on Mbengwi Road. . Human Rights Watch did not interview any witnesses to the killings but spoke with five people who saw their bodies and with two medical sources at the Bamenda regional hospital who confirmed that the boys’ bodies were taken to the hospital’s mortuary and that a 70-year-old man was treated and died there on December 10.

A 45-year-old truck driver who rescued the older man and took him to the hospital said:

The soldiers burned my home and shot my tenant, a 70-year-old man. He didn’t die on the spot. I found him outside my home, bleeding. He had been shot in the right leg. I took him to the regional hospital; he died two days later. He could not escape because of his age. He was too old and weak and could not.

Human Rights Watch reviewed two videos sent directly to its researchers and posted to social media platforms, whose authenticity was confirmed by the truck driver and another resident of Mbengwi road, showing the 70-year-old man on the ground after he was shot. In the video, the man’s right trouser leg is cut open with his injured leg exposed, consistent with injuries witnesses described.

A 44-year-old man whose home was burned during the attack said he saw the bodies of the two children. “They were apprentices at the welder workshop in front of my home,” he said. “Their bodies were partially burned. So, it was difficult to determine where they had been shot. The bodies were taken to the mortuary of the Bamenda regional hospital.”

Burning of Property

A 34-year-old woman, whose home and food shop were burned by soldiers, said:

I was in my shop when the soldiers started coming at around 4 p.m. I heard shooting. I saw more than 20 soldiers on foot. They were shooting at random and burning everything along their way. I decided to escape. I ran as fast as I could and hid in a nearby home. I was worried because my two children, 7 and 5 years old, were at home. Then, I sought shelter at my aunt’s home.

The following day, when I went back to Mbengwi road, I found that my shop had been completely burned and my home partially burned. I managed to reunite with my children, and they told me that the military set the room on fire while they were still inside. Neighbors rescued them. I can’t believe my children could have been burned alive.

The Human Rights Watch analysis of lower resolution satellite images is consistent with witness accounts regarding the date and time of the fires. A satellite image recorded on December 8, 2021, at 10:39 a.m. (local time) shows no signs of damage, but 24 hours later, multiple buildings were affected by fire.

A woman whose nail salon was burned during the attack said:

The military came and burned my shop down. It was my only source of income. I was in the shop with my 5-year-old child when the soldiers came and set it on fire. One of them said: ‘Shoot them!’ But another said: ‘Let them go.’ So, we ran. And then they burned the shop. My child has been traumatized since. I lost everything I had – about 1 million CFA [US$1,725].

A 45-year-old man whose home and shop were burned said:

My four-room house, with everything inside, and my shop, where I used to sell food and drinks, are gone. The military burned them. I was outside my home when they [the soldiers] came. My wife and eight children were inside the house. The soldiers came on foot and shot around randomly, setting buildings along the road on fire. I had to run away with my family. I lost all I had. I estimate my losses at 15 million CFA [US$25,880]. We now live with a relative.

Beatings

Soldiers also beat the truck driver, he said:

When a friend called me to inform me that my home was on fire, I rushed there, but I was stopped by soldiers along the way. I could see smoke and flames coming from my house. The soldiers dragged me by the roadside, ordered me to lay on the ground, and then they beat me and kicked me. They wanted to know who planted the bomb [which was used to ambush soldiers]. They said I should tell them where the amba [separatist fighters] were hiding.

Military Operation in Chomba Village (December 10, 2021)

According to four witnesses, at least 50 BIR soldiers cordoned off Chomba village as early as 7 a.m. on December 10. They searched door-to-door, stealing items and money from villagers and forcing some of them out of their homes. They gathered at least 80 villagers, including women and children, at the village square and kept them there until at least 4 p.m. They issued death threats, beat some people, and burned a home.

A pastor who was among those assembled at the village square said:

Five BIR soldiers broke into my home. They searched all the rooms, including the toilets and the kitchen. They said they were looking for ‘Amba boys’ [separatist fighters]. I was ordered to join other villagers that they had removed from their homes and were gathered at the village square. Some soldiers were guarding us there; others were entering every compound, breaking doors, taking away valuables and money. They set fire to one of the houses where they claimed they had found a gun. At the village square, they threatened to kill all of us. One soldier told me to lie prostrate on the ground, the reason being that I was carefully observing his moves.

A 57-year-old businessman said:

I was driving with my wife, my two children, and another passenger when BIR soldiers stopped my car, ordered us to get out, told me to drive back to Chomba and forced my family to walk back. They took us to the village square, where they had assembled about 80 people, including women and children. We sat there under the sun until the military left. They threatened to kill us; they accused us of being amba [separatist fighters]. They beat some people in front of me on their heads. At one point, they ordered us to face the wall of a house. Everybody turned towards the wall crying. People thought they would be executed.

Witnesses said that armed separatists operate in Chomba and the surrounding areas. Capo Daniel, the deputy chief of staff of the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF), a major separatist group, described Chomba to Human Rights Watch as “an ADF stronghold.” All witnesses confirmed, however, that there was no confrontation between the security forces and the separatists on December 10, and that the separatists fled when security forces arrived: “There was no clash between the soldiers and the amba [separatist fighters],” the 57-year-old businessman said. “Amba pass by Chomba, but this doesn’t make us, the villagers, amba. But that’s what the military say. They punished us.”

Enforced Disappearances and Killings

Witnesses said that, at the end of the military operation, on the evening of December 10, they noticed that four villagers – a man with his wife, another woman, and another man – were unaccounted for. They said the entire community looked for the four people, including in police and gendarmerie stations in the nearby city of Bamenda, without finding them.

A lawyer said that he went to a gendarmerie post in Bamenda on December 14 to inquire about them: “The gendarme officer told me they were not in their cells.” The same lawyer said that one of his colleagues, also a lawyer, filed a complaint to the North-West region’s attorney general, requesting information about two of the disappeared people, and that the complaint was transferred to the gendarmerie for investigation. Human Rights Watch has not been able to see a copy of the complaint.

If a person is deprived of their liberty by state agents, and their detention is not acknowledged or details of their whereabouts or fate are concealed, this constitutes an enforced disappearance, strictly prohibited under international law. Governments are obligated to investigate any allegation of enforced disappearance and punish those responsible appropriately.

A 61-year-old man and a relative of three of the disappeared people said that during the military operation in Chomba, he saw soldiers entering the home where the forcibly disappeared people were allegedly taken from, and that he later heard gunshots: “I saw the BIR approaching the house. They asked me: ‘What are you doing here?’ I replied that I was the neighbor. They said I should immediately go back home and lock my door. Which I did. Then, I heard gunshots.”

A 46-year-old driver and relative of three of the victims said that the 7-year-old child of one of the couples came to his home in the evening of December 10, saying that soldiers had taken away his parents.

Witnesses said that a Chomba resident found the bodies on December 29 in an abandoned home in Chomba in an advanced state of decomposition and with signs of gunshot wounds to their heads. He alerted the community. Human Rights Watch reviewed a video sent directly to its researchers and posted online, whose authenticity was confirmed by the four witnesses, showing the bodies when they were discovered, as well as three photographs showing their burial.

“I went there and brought plastic bags to wrap the bodies,” the 46-year-old driver said. “I identified the people killed and noticed they had also been shot in the heads. With the help of others, I buried them in Chomba.”

Attack in Bamenda’s Ngomgham Neighborhood (December 22, 2021)

On December 22, between 10:30 and 11 a.m., soldiers on patrol at Cowboy junction, in Bamenda’s Ngomgham neighborhood, shot two children, killing the 3-year-old girl and injuring the 17-year-old girl.

A relative of the victims, who spoke with the injured survivor, said that the girls were passengers on a motorbike when the military shot them: “They shot the 3-year-old girl in the ribs, and she died on the spot; the elder one was shot in the left arm. The motorbike driver ran off.”

Two relatives said the 17-year-old girl was taken to Bamenda’s St. Mary hospital after the shooting, where she underwent surgery to remove the bullet from her left arm. Human Rights Watch reviewed two photographs showing her on a hospital bed with her arm wrapped bandages, as well as the bills sent by the hospital to the girl’s family. The girl was discharged on December 31, a relative said.

The 3-year-old girl was buried on December 24 in Menka village, North-West region. Local media and the UK high commissioner in Cameroon reported that a second girl was killed on December 22, also in Ngomgham neighborhood, but Human Rights Watch was unable to verify the information.

Culled from Human Rights Watch

The people of Manyu and Ndian must be vigilant. Their wealth is disappearing right before their own eyes.

Due to the war and the focus on football, there is a lot of illegal logging taking place in the Manyu and Ndian forests.

There are reports that Nigerians and Chinese gangs are working together to rob the people of the Southwest of their prized wood.

 Traditional chiefs are being brought into the corrupt deals and many are willing to play ball.

Our chief correspondent in Mundemba reported that even government officials are jumping into the lucrative deals. Chinese and Nigerian gangs are collaborating with corrupt government officials to rob the people of their wealth.

The current Ambazonian war is making it easy for these gangs to cart away wood from these frontier divisions into Nigeria and the provenance of the wood is changed once the wood gets into Nigeria. The wood is destined for China.

Chinese are working with Nigerians and some Southern Cameroonian groups. These criminal gangs are robbing the population  of its wealth.

Cameroon Concord News Group is investigating and will be providing more details in the days ahead.

The head of an elite Cameroon government army soldier serving with the 51 Infantry Batallion in the West region was cut off with a spade after out of ammunition Ambazonia fighters on Tuesday raided Government High School Bameyam in the Bamboutous District bordering the North West.

After killing the Cameroon government soldier, the Amba fighters used the enemy’s gun to injure two other troops.

The Ministry of Defense confirmed the brutal incident and added that the attack occurred deep inside Galim.

The soldier was ambushed by Amba fighters who took refuge in a farm behind the school building.

Sources at the defense headquarters in Yaounde say during the ambush, the Ambazonia fighters taunted the soldier, telling him they would send his head back to his wife.

Two other Cameroon government soldiers who reportedly radioed for help were seriously injured.

By Fon Lawrence

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government Dabney Yerima says genuine Southern Cameroons front line leaders need to put in place solid structures for the Ambazonia resistance in the interest of the people of Ambazonia.

The exiled Ambazonia leader made the comments in Den Hague during an evaluation meeting on the plight of Southern Cameroons refugees, stressing that the British Southern Cameroons society is in need of changing its approach and thinking.

Dabney Yerima said such a new resistance approach and thinking should be based on Southern Cameroons political, economic and social interests and not those being dished out from Yaounde.

Yerima also revealed that the Interim Government is working to establish a mutual understanding and close visions among all Ambazonia groups in Ground Zero and issues of mutual concern are being dealt with.

Yerima further praised the balanced role of the Southern Cameroons diaspora and support for the liberation struggle and hailed all Amba fighters as crucial players in the war to free the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, saying soon and very soon, the distractions coming from the US will disappear and Southern Cameroonians will be facing the challenges that surround them.

By Chi Prudence Asong