The U.N.’s World Food Program says thousands of destitute people in Cameroon’s crisis-prone western regions are going hungry and their situations may become worse if the separatist crisis there continues. Chris Nikoi, WFP regional director for west and central Africa is visiting hungry community members – most of them farmers chased from their farms by Cameroon’s separatist conflicts who are pleading to be spared from fighting between the military and separatists.

Hundreds of civilians in the town of Bamenda Thursday welcomed Nikoi in their English-speaking town in Cameroon’s restive North-West region.

Among those who came out was 59-year-old farmer Clifford Tayong. Tayong said he asked Nikoi to thank the WFP for the assistance the U.N. body has been giving people suffering as a result of the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s western regions.

Tayong said besides rice and vegetable oil, the WFP gave him and his three children $60 in August. He said his family again received $80 from the WFP in September. Tayong said he used the money to buy school supplies for his children. He said he also bought two roosters and eight hens to start a poultry farm that will enable him to earn money and take care of his family.

Tayong said he lost all his beans and corn when his one-hectare farm was burned down in the English-speaking Bafut Subdivision near Bamenda. He said the military accused him of giving food to separatist fighters and torched his farm.

Tayong and many others who fled the separatist crisis recounted their suffering to Nikoi. They pleaded to be spared from the fighting and said they wanted to return to their villages.

Nikoi said thousands of Cameroonians chased from their towns and villages by the separatist crisis are now very poor and hungry.

“I can’t help thinking about the women and the men and the stories about their farms being torched and to the point where the little dignity that they are able to retain in their lives is because of the monthly little assistance that they are having from the World Food Program, so I am living here proud of what we are doing to sustain people’s lives,” he said.

Nikoi said famine looms should the separatist crisis persist and force farmers to stay away from their fields. He said the WFP is assisting 280,000 civilians in the English-speaking North-West region.

Most of those receiving WFP assistance are displaced persons living with disabilities, pregnant women or people whose houses have been burned.

Farmers say their farms, houses and plantations have been destroyed by both government troops and separatist fighters. They say separatist fighters torch houses and farms of people suspected of collaborating with government troops, while government troops destroy the properties of people suspected of supporting the rebels.

Both the Cameroon military and separatists have always denied that their troops target civilians, their farms, plantations or houses.

Cameroon Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Gabriel Mbairobe said farmers who return to their farms will be given seed and fertilizers at reduced prices. He said the military will protect displaced people who return to places where there is relative peace.

The WFP reports that as part of its crisis response operations, it distributed 1,608 metric tons of food to 199,000 beneficiaries in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West regions. The U.N. also reports that as part of its malnutrition prevention program the WFP provided 48 metric tons of specialized nutritious foods to 8,100 children aged 6 to 59 months and to 5,500 girls and pregnant women.

According to the U.N., 4.4 million of the 25 million Cameroonians need humanitarian assistance, and more than 1.9 million were food-insecure between June and August.

The separatist crisis has forced more than 750,000 people to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in late 2017, according to the U.N. Ongoing armed clashes, civilian casualties and the burning of houses, hospitals and other infrastructure are causing further displacement, suffering and hunger.

Source: VOA

Amamzalla John Danladi Joseph, the Chairman of Kurmi Local Government Area of Taraba State, has decried the presence of Cameroonian soldiers in some villages of his council.

The foreign soldiers, he said, have been going about harassing and intimidating the villagers with the pretext of searching for their citizens who had fled to the area.

The country, it would be recalled, had in the past years been facing a civil war following the quest for self independence by some sections of the country.

The upheaval has forced some of its citizens to flee to some parts of Taraba as refugees.

Joseph claimed the soldiers were in Mairogo and Tosso.

“The residents of Mairogo and Tosso villages were repeatedly intimidated by the Cameroonian soldiers who claimed they were searching for Ambazonian agitators who fled Cameroon at the heat of their clash recently and took refuge in some communities in the area.”

The chairman, who also said he and the Commanding Officer in charge of the Nigerian Army 93 Battalion in Takum council of the state, in company of no fewer than 60 soldiers, visited the villages at the instance of the state governor, Arc. Darius Dickson Ishaku, said he was displeased with the acts of the foreign soldiers.

He however reassured the people of the affected villages of the commitment of the state government towards protecting their lives and property from external aggression.

Urging the people to remain calm and cease from acts capable of truncating the peace of the areas, the government, according to him, will not only work round the clock to ensure their safety but will also bring to an end the invasion and intimidation being perpetrated by the foreign soldiers.

About five out of the 16 local government councils of the state, play host to persons who fled the country following the breakdown of law and order that have led to wanton destruction of lives and properties.

Source: Dailypost.ng

A military tribunal in Cameroon has sentenced four people to death, in a trial marked by procedural irregularities, for an attack on a school in Kumba, the South-West region, one year ago. The attack killed seven children and injured at least 13 others.

The 12 defendants, on trial before the Buea military court since December 2020, included the school owner, principal, and four teachers. The court found four guilty of terrorism, secession, hostility against the fatherland, murder, possession of illegal arms and ammunition, and insurrection. It sentenced four other defendants to five months in jail and a fine of 50,000 CFA (US $89) for allegedly failing to report receipt of a threat from separatist fighters. The court acquitted four others. In addition to the use of a military tribunal to try civilians, the trial was marred by serious procedural irregularities such as violating the rights of the accused to challenge the evidence against them and to present evidence in their own defense. Two teachers were acquitted.

“Victims of the Kumba massacre have a right to expect an effective investigation, and for those responsible to be brought to justice in a fair trial,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, Cameroonian authorities seem to have railroaded people into a sham trial before a military tribunal, with a predetermined outcome, capped with the imposition of the death penalty which is unlawful under international human rights law.”

On October 24, 2020, gunmen stormed Mother Francisca Bilingual Academy, a private school in Kumba’s Fiango neighborhood. No one claimed responsibility for the killings, but the government blamed armed separatists who have called for a boycott of education in the Anglophone regions since 2017.

Defense lawyers described to Human Rights Watch the multiple procedural irregularities at the trial, including the inherent lack of independence and fairness of the process that civilians face before a military tribunal. The defense was not allowed to cross examine witnesses; the proceedings were not translated from English or French into the pidgin English spoken by most of the defendants; the accused were arbitrarily detained; and the use of the death sentence is of concern.

“The entire trial was predicated upon circumstantial evidence as opposed to real evidence, and throughout the trial, the prosecution brought no witness we could ask questions,” Atoh Walter Chemi, the leading defense counsel, told Human Rights Watch.

Defense lawyers said that the prosecution presented all its evidence in written statements without calling any witnesses to be questioned on their statements. Section 336 of Cameroon’s criminal procedural code allows written testimony if a witness cannot appear in court. Such exceptions should be rare and limited to occasions in which it is not possible to produce the witness. Such evidence should also require corroboration. To base a conviction solely or predominantly on the untested hearsay testimony of absent witnesses violates fair trial standards.

Among the defendants were four teachers of the Mother Francisca Academy, the principal of the school, and the owner of the school and her husband. On the day of the attack, Chamberlin Ntou’ou Ndong, the government’s senior divisional officer for the Meme division, an administrative area that includes Kumba, ordered the police to detain the owner of the school, her husband and two teachers at the Kumba police station to “ensure their safety,” citing potential risks of reprisals by the community. But victims’ family members and Kumba residents told Human Rights Watch that it was unlikely that anyone would want to harm them. “These teachers should have been brought into the trial as witnesses, not as accused persons,” said Ikose Daniel Etongwe, a defense lawyer.

Four days after the massacre, Cameroon’s communications minister said that security forces had killed a separatist fighter who was allegedly among those responsible. In February, local media reported that the army spokesperson had announced that elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (Battallion d’intervention rapide, BIR), an elite army unit, killed another separatist fighter known as “Above the law,” who was also allegedly involved in the Kumba school killings.

Defense lawyers said the prosecution didn’t inform them about these killing, nor was this evidence mentioned in the preliminary investigations. During the trial no reference was made to these military operations, no connection was established between the alleged fighters killed and the defendants, and the defense did not have an opportunity to raise any questions about those killed. Defense lawyers said that one of the four people sentenced to death admitted that he was a former separatist fighter.

Defense lawyers also said that the 12 accused were initially held without charge for more than 30 days at the police station and the gendarmerie brigade in Buea which violates both international law and the Cameroonian criminal procedure code.

On September 14, defense lawyers notified the court of their intention to appeal but were required to pay 200,000 CFA (USD 352), the amount of the fines also levied by the military court on the four defendants, before their appeal would be accepted. On October 4, the secretary of the Buea military court informed the defense lawyers about the conditions of appeal, which include an additional payment of 420,000 CFA (USD 739), a clear barrier to appeal in a death penalty procedure.

The trial, which received no media attention before the verdict was pronounced on September 7, started in December 2020. Defense lawyers said all 12 defendants had to present their cases in one day during a “marathon hearing” in July 2021.

The use of military courts to try civilians violates international law. Military court proceedings typically do not protect basic due process rights or satisfy requirements for independence and impartiality, Human Rights Watch said. Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have previously documented military trial proceedings in Cameroon marred by serious substantive and procedural defects in which the presumption of innocence, the right to an adequate defense, and the independence of proceedings are all seriously undermined.

Courts in Cameroon continue to impose the death penalty, although the country’s last reported execution was in 1997. Cameroon has not ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on the abolition of the death penalty. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights has long called on African governments to abolish the death penalty and has adopted a resolution on its abolition. The UN Human Rights Committee in its general comment on the right to life, reiterated that where the death penalty has not been abolished, it can only be imposed in the most limited of circumstances for the most serious cases and when fair trial standards have been observed to the highest standards, so that the person’s criminal responsibility is proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The committee has noted that trials in which the accused has been unable to question relevant witnesses or where there is lack of an effective right of appeal, among other violations, are not fair trials and make any imposition of the death sentence arbitrary and a violation. The committee also emphasized that imposition of the death penalty by a military court on civilians violates the right to life. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime.

“The military court should never have handled this case involving civilians, and it seems to have made little effort to ensure basic respect for human rights standards,” Allegrozzi said. “If the authorities intend to deliver justice for this heinous crime against children, they need to bring a credible case before civilian courts and hold those responsible to account according to international fair trial standards.”

Culled from Human Rights Watch

At least eight civilians have been killed in military raids in Wum, Menchum Division in the North West region, local and security sources said Wednesday.

The raids in Wum, the chief town in Menchum, came after Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards killed a government soldier who was on a night patrol in the area, according to a military official who asked not to be named.

From Monday to Tuesday, government troops accompanied by pro French Cameroun armed Mbororo vigilantes raided the locality.

The attacks were described by four villagers Wednesday, who said they had fled into nearby bushes or cowered at home while soldiers rifled through their belongings. They said they saw seven dead people, including three armed separatist fighters and four civilians.

The military official said troops were conducting a raid on separatist positions when they came under fire and killed what he labelled as terrorists.

The Cameroonian army has beefed up security in the region after armed separatists ambushed and killed 15 soldiers in a single combat in September.

The army has since 2017 been fighting English-speaking militias seeking to form a breakaway state known as Ambazonia in the two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest.

Reported by Cameroon Concord News and Xinhuanet.com

After five days of searching for his imprisoned clients, lawyer Nicodemus Amungwa stood up in a court in Cameroon this week to reveal the strange truth: The prisoners had vanished.

Mr. Amungwa had hunted for them everywhere, shuttling from office to office in the maze of military and judicial authorities that might be holding the three men. In the end, he could determine only that unidentified security officers had abducted them from their prison cells on Oct. 13 and taken them to an unknown location.

The disappearances of Tita Tebid, Hamlet Acheshit and John Fonge are just the latest twist in the government’s increasingly violent conflict with armed separatist groups in Cameroon’s minority English-speaking regions. More than 3,500 civilians have been killed and nearly a million have been forced from their homes as a result of the conflict that began in 2016.

Enforced disappearances, incommunicado detention and torture in unknown locations are among the increasingly common tactics the government has used against the separatists, according to defence lawyers and human-rights groups.

Two of Mr. Amungwa’s clients, already detained for four years without trial on vague charges of terrorism and other offences for their alleged role in armed separatist groups, were due to appear on Monday at a military tribunal in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. Instead, the lawyer had to tell the judge his clients were among the three prisoners who had disappeared.

“She was amazed, she was flabbergasted, to hear that we don’t know where our clients are,” Mr. Amungwa told The Globe and Mail in an interview.

He and a team of defence lawyers have been left in the dark as they search for their clients. “They appear to be here and are not here, they appear to be there but are not there,” Mr. Amungwa said.

“We are worried and their families are worried,” he said.

Human-rights activists are increasingly fearful that the prisoners could be subjected to abuse or even torture in secret detention sites – a practice that has been documented in Cameroon for years.

In one notorious case, Cameroonian journalist Samuel Wazizi disappeared on Aug. 7, 2019, after he was removed from a police station and taken to a military site in an anglophone region. He was accused of being a terrorist in a separatist group, but he told his lawyer he was arrested for criticizing the government’s handling of the crisis in the English-speaking regions.

Not until June of the following year – after 10 months of silence – did the authorities finally confirm that Mr. Wazizi had died in detention.

In another case, documented in a report by Amnesty International, Cameroonian authorities held more than 100 detainees incommunicado and tortured many of them in a detention centre in Yaoundé from July 23 to Aug. 4, 2019.

Now there are concerns that the three disappeared prisoners could suffer the same fate.

“They were bundled out of Kondengui prison like cargo from a warehouse,” Mr. Amungwa said.

“Kondengui is serving like a private warehouse for judicial officials who just keep their goods there and take them out, whenever they need, to whatever place they want. They should stop using the judiciary as a tool for intimidation and repression.”

Jackie Fearnley, a British-based campaigner for Cameroonian refugees and political prisoners, said it is very likely the prisoners were taken to a bunker where torture and brutal treatment are common. “Over many years, I have been shocked by the routine use of torture in Cameroonian prisons,” she told The Globe and Mail.

The prisoners disappeared at a time of growing military tensions in the English-speaking regions. About 15 soldiers were killed last month in two ambushes by separatists who used bombs and an anti-tank rocket launcher, an example of the increasingly heavy weaponry of the separatist militias.

Since then, the Cameroonian military has sent additional troops and vehicles into the Northwest Region, and the clashes have worsened, including reported military attacks on village homes.

Last week, a military police officer shot at a car and killed a five-year-old girl in Southwest Cameroon, another anglophone region. A crowd responded by killing the officer, and two days of protests followed. The officer reportedly fired at the car because its driver had refused to stop at a checkpoint.

In an earlier incident in August, a Canadian employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed by armed men in the Northwest Region. The killing of Diomède Nzobambona has not been solved.

About one-fifth of Cameroon’s 26 million people are English-speakers, living primarily in the Southwest and Northwest regions, which were a British territory in colonial times.

For decades, they have complained of inequality and discrimination by the government and the francophone majority. A protest movement in 2016 and 2017 led to a violent crackdown by the government, followed by a unilateral declaration of independence by the leaders of the anglophone regions, which formed a self-declared state known as Ambazonia.

Source: theglobeandmail.com