Southern Cameroons Crisis: Mob justice on the rise in Cameroon’s restive regions ⁰

As the Yaounde government demonstrates that it is incapable of providing security and justice to all Cameroonians, communities and vigilante groups are now taking matters into their hands and the outcomes are not heart-warming.

Over the last four years, cases of jungle justice in the two English-speaking regions of the country have been on the rise as rogue elements seek to make hay while the sun shines as the fighting in the country’s two English-speaking regions continues to escalate.

The country’s security forces are also to blame for some of the violence playing out in the regions and their crimes against the frustrated fatigued civilians makes it hard for the population to report any incidents, especially when the uniformed forces are known to outsource their guns and uniforms for commissions.

As the security  situation in the two English-speaking regions remains fussy, civilians have opted to take matters into their hands to deal with many young men who have become a menace to their own communities because of the Southern Cameroons crisis.

This was what happened to a young man in Bambui in the Northwest region of Cameroon. The population was sick and tired of his threats and had to take the law into its hands.

It beat and burned the young man  alive as a sign of frustration and a message to would-be criminals who would want to use the crisis to exploit the suffering masses.

The suspect, who had been tried and sentenced by the “court of jungle justice” was accused of robbing many residents of his neighborhood, especially students.

He joined his ancestors after a crowd mobilised and caught up with him near the National Polytechnic in Bambui.

The young man was operating on a slippery terrain and he forgot that in Southern Cameroons, justice delayed is justice denied and that was how he was summarily killed through mob justice.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda