The Anglophone crisis which has been ongoing for the past seven years has now spiralled into an unimaginable death-trap for the people of Southern Cameroons. Despite the skyrocketing violence, the ruling government is not showing any willingness to either come to the negotiation table nor initiate other approaches to bring an end to the bloody conflict. On the contrary, victimizing civilians has become a war strategy for the regime in their attempt to force the people to give up on their rights to self determination. On countless occasions, government forces have been guilty of war crimes, indiscriminate shooting of civilians, arbitrarily arrests, inhumane detention and torture.

With no end of the war in sight, what fate for the people of Southern Cameroons who after being subjected to over 50years of profound historical alienation, marginalization, and discrimination are now being subjugated to the gruesome experience of genocide; one of the worst of our times.

At this point, the ordeal of Mandong Henry, a Southern Cameroonian who lives in Yaounde comes to mind. His predicament began on June the 6th, 2023, when he was arbitrarily arrested by elements of the national gendarme forces from his residence at Biyem-Assi neighbourhood. In narrating the incident, Human Rights Lawyer Barrister Tamfu Richard stated that he was taken to the gendarme headquarters in Yaounde, handcuffed. On arrival, they stripped him off his clothes and tied him to a mango tree with the handcuffs on for two days. He spent the entire two days tied onto the tree with no food nor water. As if that was not enough, he was then tortured by gendarmes. Turn by turn, they brutally beat him on the back mercilessly with machetes, sticks, iron rods, and electric cables. Although the torturing left his back completely covered with wounds, he was not taken to the hospital; but instead thrown into detention at SED (State Defence Secretariat). in the cause of torturing him, his left eye was almost damaged.

Mandong Henry was allegedly accused of being involved in a plot to transport an explosive in a bag from Bamenda to Yaounde. At the time of his accusation, he worked as a loader for an inter-urban bus agency that transported passengers from Bamenda to Yaounde. No investigation was carried out before his arrest. Neither was he convicted of the alleged accusations. Again, another southern Cameroonian had to innocently suffer from unlawful arrest, torture and detention.

Since the beginning of the anglophone crisis, the rate at which the human rights of Southern Cameroonians are being violated by the forces of the Cameroonian government is particularly concerning. I can say it portrays a deeply rooted deadly hatred and that is why the cause of the Anglophone Crisis needs to be addressed from it’s roots. That hatred can be felt and seen from the atrocities that are being committed against the people of Southern Cameroons because of the ongoing conflict.

We, as a people and a nation deserve the right to a safe and secure future. War crimes are surging at an exponential rate, as the regime continues to deploy military forces on a daily basis to the North West and South west Regions Of Southern Cameroons. Instead of protecting the population, they kill, abduct, force disappearances, raid and set villages ablaze.

Thousands have been displaced for lack of food, shelter and adequate medical care. Several thousands are suffering in the bushes. Reportedly, soldiers are killing civilians fleeing and searching for safety. On the 17th of June 2023, 12 civilians were killed while they were fleeing from military raid at Big Babanki, in the North West Region of Southern Cameroons.

The Big Babanki Massacre.

 

This again attests to the fact that there is no safe place for Southern Cameroonians in Cameroon. This conflict has caused untold hardship and sufferings to our people and according to a United Nations report, over 4.7million people are in dying need of humanitarian assistance.

Human rights are the cornerstone of the United Nations and we call for the international Community to initiate peace talks and compel Cameroon to come to the negotiation table. This is to raise the awareness that there is an ongoing genocide in Southern Cameroons, and to urge the initiation of peace talks to end the conflict.

#endanglophonecrisis
Justice for Mandong Henry
Our human rights matter.

Author: Dorothy Arrey
Freedom fighter and Humanitarian Lead
Follow on twitter for more at Dorothy Arrey

Over the years, the Anglophone crisis has seen a steady increase in government forces cracking down on journalists to eventually suppress, silent and restrict their freedom of expression with regards to reporting on the crisis.

The government tag journalists who attempt to report on the Anglophone Crisis as tarnishing the image of the country. To the regime, such reporting is being critical on the government. The government will rather influence the reports of journalists or brand them as tarnishing territorial integrity. In other instances, they label journalists as terrorists without any justifications.

Consequently, many journalists now find themselves trapped between the tight choice of their professional functionality and the heavy penalty of harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrest/detention and even death without committing any crime known to law.
The role of the media in shaping the outcome of an armed conflict cannot be overemphasized.

Eventually, with armed conflicts come the devastating loss of civil lives and livelihoods, the use of violence/torture, the violations of human rights, the killing of prisoners of war and other forms of war crimes. While it remains true that armed conflicts attract media attention, the coverage and release of information is primordial to impacting public opinions and decision-making with regards to the conflict.

What then becomes the fate of the Anglophone Crisis under these circumstances of insufficient and biased media coverage. Tragically, aside limiting access for international media, the regime of Paul Biya is killing journalists to prevent the realities surrounding the brutal and systemic genocide perpetuating in Southern Cameroons from being exposed.

For several years now, the conflict has been ranked amongst the most neglected ones by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Particularly, the conflict was top on the NRC list for 2 consecutive years, that is, in 2019 and 2020. So far, global response and media coverage on the Anglophone Crisis has been very poor. The plight of Southern Cameroonians following the genocide inflicted on them by the Biya regime of Cameroon rarely makes it to international headlines. Thus, depriving the suffering people of the necessary assistance and diplomatic interventions that will bring the conflict to an end.

Since the onset of the Anglophone Crisis, many journalists have had to face unlawful arrests and a lot of traumatising situations. In 2022, Amnesty International and other civil society organisations demanded that the government of Cameroon should free journalists that had been arrested and detained for exercising their rights to freedom of expression. Among them included Tsi Conrad, Mancho Bibixy, Thomas Awah, Kingsley Formunyuy Njoka and many more.
The story of Samuel Ajiekah Abume, a journalist popularly known as Samuel Wazizi is particularly chilling. He worked for a local broadcaster based in the Southwest Region of Southern Cameroons. Wazizi, who hosted the “Halla ya Matta” (Shout out your Problem), a weekday pidgin show on Chillen Muzik TV, was arrested by police in Buea on August 2, 2019.

His employer explained that at the time of his arrest, the armed police officers who arrested him claimed he was being invited by their boss to gather information in relation to a certain pidgin news. After being arrested, he was detained incommunicado at the national gendarme (a military police force), without any contact with his family or access to legal advice. Subsequently, he died in detention on the 17th of August 2019, just 15 days after his arrest. A journalist in good health suddenly dies in detention.

Throughout the period of detention, Wazizi’s state of health and exact location was unknown despite efforts being made to get in touch with him. The official military statement of his death was made on June the 05th, 2020, 10 months after he died. No explanations were put forth why the government concealed his death for 10months and why his remains were never handed to his family till date.
His death was reported over several local television channels and newspapers. Specifically, according to Equinox TV, Samuel Wazizi died from wounds and injuries sustained after his arrest which suggested that he was tortured.

The government accused him of speaking critically on the air about government authorities and their handling of the anglophone Crisis. Other versions reported that he exposed military atrocities committed against Southern Cameroonians in his reports and did not take sides with the government. The military further accused him of communicating with separatist fighters, charges his family and colleagues denied vehemently. The government presented no proves of it’s accusations till date.

His death was described on several media pages as the worst crime ever committed against a journalist. His remains were never seen nor handed over to his family. No explanations were brought forth by the government over the circumstances surrounding his death. Although a commission of inquiry arose requesting explanations from the government, they were silent. The government claimed he died from sepsis but never provided any prove to support their claims. Despite the press for investigation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) over the exact circumstances that led to the death of Wazizi, the government remained silent till date.

Justice for Wazizi is justice for all journalists in Southern Cameroons.
Tomorrow, it could be another if corresponding action is not taken.

Author: Dorothy Arrey
Freedom fighter and Humanitarian Lead
Follow on twitter for more at Dorothy Arrey

This was one of our biggest and darling projects located in the former British Southern Cameroon. This establishment created jobs for thousands of its citizens and even after independence, it stood as the largest employer, directly employing more people than the state of  Cameroon.

Workers enjoyed many facilities such good houses, health, clubs, rest houses, lights, workers shops and so on. With each and every workers camp having a power house for energy, life was better. Workers could take anything they needed from the shops and deductions done at the end of month. C.D.C clubs usually pull the attention of the entire town on pay days.

During holidays students were given advantage of holiday jobs, and at the end of holidays one was proud in one way or the other to help their parents.  Aside from the direct benefits in employment terms, it generated huge tax revenue, and brought in foreign currency through the export of semi processed products like rubber. This farming corporation was truly a behemoth in Southern Cameroons and a pillar of symbolism to our identity.

Today the corporation has been raped and ruined completely by the La. Republic of Cameroon and the process started immediately after annexing us in 1961. As one of the last strategies of breaking it completely, they decided to create as many chiefs as they can and have over the years pretend handing over their land by carving out sections of land once cultivated for crops by the CDC,  but behind this scheme, the French Cameroon authority implanted administrators takes the best and larger chunks of these former farm lands.

The sad irony behind this de-agriculturalization of Southern Cameroons is that, the Cameroonian authorities is working daily to develop plantations in their French part of the country, newly planted and young development crops in CDC are increasingly destroyed with pretext of returning lands to the people whilst foreign companies such as Demonte are encouraged to expand farms the French section of the country. Do these people look like one we can live with? The answer is NO.

The defensive war of liberation being waged now is kneejerk reaction to decades of silence and calculated wars the French Cameroon authority has waged against the institutions, education, culture, economy, health and socio political fabric of Southern Cameroons. Southern Cameroonians by default are peace loving people but as they say, even a limbless human would fight back when pushed to the war. Southern Cameroonians has long been pushed to the wall and fighting is the only option.

Author: Michael Jingwa Forji – London, United Kingdom.

It is lamentable and embarrassing to say that the old maternity ward I was given birth to in the sixties was better managed and operated than the death trap found today in the name of ‘Tombel District Hospital’.

Touching on the appalling state infrastructure.

Constructed  in the late 1980s, this district hospital was relocated from it former colonial building to its current location, at Kupe Road. From inception, just like every endeavour undertaking by French Cameroon administrators on our territory, the infrastructure of this hospital has been a constant mess and hotpot for corruption. For a start, a water tank that was erected immediately after the hospital became operational has never stored water three decades after construction. A  huge hole that was dug for waste water treatment ended up as dumping site for hospital rubbish including clinical waste such as sharps, moist tissues etc. In fact, the proximity of this pit to the hospital facilitate itself is another high risk factor facing patients receiving treatment at the facility, talk less of uncountable cases of children who get injured and infected yearly when they run into this pit to play or collect waste hospital materials dumped there to play with.

A company contracted by higher authorities of French Cameroon  to construct the doctor’s residence, attempted to but the structure erected ended up as premises for the hospital night watchers or night security staff. Pondering why the security men, commonly classed (in Cameroon) among the lowest ranking jobs ended up living in the only residential building in the hospital? I’m sure your guess is best as mine.

The whole hospital area is constantly surrounded by bushes, rubbish litters everywhere and an exposed dump full of medical waste which promote breeding grounds for mosquitoes and snakes, just to name a few. Which medical doctor in their right senses would want to reside with their families in such a location? Just to conclude on this point. Translating what was supposed to be a modern four bedded apartment from paper to the ground led to the construction of  nothing more than a hut. Some of you reading this may think, obstacles came as result of difficult terrain of somewhat but in reality and culprit is never!! I’ll leave you to conclude.

The lighting system is a clear health hazard to patients in the hospital as the place is almost in constant darkness. The official garage to the hospital is full of fake electricity generators supplied by Cameroonian government contractors. The only efficient one that ever worked miraculously got vanished by a doctor for personal usage whilst patients are left at God’s mercy, as none left in the garage works. If not of few elites who donated some materials like mattresses and other furniture, then the situation would have been far worse.

Hospital Operations and Management.

Despite all the sad infrastructure short-comings, cost of treatment at the hospital is expensive vis-à-vis their government counterparts in neighbouring towns of Loum and Njoumbe of the French regions of Cameroon. No good doctor stays in Tombel District Hospital, with familiar  complaints of the poor state of hospital infrastructure. Due to the high rate of doctors turn over, nurses are often allowed to perform clinical procedures reserved for doctors, with dangerous and deadly consequences. Nurses and other hospital staff openly bring medical consumables such as drugs, bandages, drips etc. bought from the outside markets into the hospital wards to directly retail to patients on sick beds. It is common to observe nurses directly prescribe drips and administer from items picked from their hand bags. Such is the pitiful state of affairs in the 21^st century hospital, in Tombel.

While similar government facilities in nearby Loum and Njoube both private and district hospitals of French Cameroon flourishes with new medical equipment and facilities, that in Tombel crawls daily and continually degrades beyond comprehension. It has become a natural phenomenon for Tombel locals to ply the terrible road condition with their ill health to receive dignify medical in the opposite side in French Cameroon. The question I have repeatedly ask myself is, why?

Why do hospitals in the French speaking regions suffer less from corruption than those in the English speaking region, despite it being the Genesis of corruption into our region? Doing my research to this question, I found something interesting. Whilst the answer narrows down to a systemic plan of hooking us (Southern Cameroons) ever depended to French Cameroon, which isn’t strange nor new, but what is strange is the way this is implemented. One of the simplest ways the Cameroonian authority implements it dependency strategy on Southern Cameroons  is via turning a blind eye on corruption in the region or tacitly encourages one by constantly appointing authorities with questionable characters to the region. By doing this, our hospitals which is meant to be a place of healing and treating illnesses has become death traps that prematurely kills our people whilst keeping those who can afford to ply on their rough roads perpetually dependant on facilities in their French speaking regions.

It is fair to say that corruption is rampant in Cameroon, but where this has given free reign or even tacitly encouraged is in the northwest and southwest of Cameroon – aka Southern Cameroon Ambazonia.

Author: Michael J. Forji (London, United Kingdom).

The background context of more than five years of ongoing and escalating genocide involves brutal killing of the people of Southern Cameroons. Evidence from the war crimes and massacres committed against the people of Southern Cameroons, has revealed the potential and wicked intent of La Republique Du Cameroun (LRC) to destroy a people who are simply standing on their human right to freedom and self-determination. Over the years, Southern Cameroon has called for peace talks on several occasion, but LRC responded with refusal to join the table for peace negotiations.

This intent to maintain Southern Cameroons in a forceful colonial union and subjection has further been materialised through extreme crimes against humanity such as brutal murders and arbitrary exterminations; series of massacres involving pregnant women and children; forceful imprisonment in deteriorating conditions and deprivation of minimum necessities; denial of the right to fair and impartial trial; inhuman torture and brutal treatments; rape and other forms of sexual violence; arbitrary arrests and disappearance of targeted persons; launching of genocidal attacks against school children; burning of entire villages, businesses and hospitals, preventing the already over-burdened population from gaining access to healthcare services; destruction of properties and livelihood; executions with no respect of human rights or prior judgement by a competent court; general military violence towards civilians, including women and children; preventing the population from gaining consistent access to basic necessities including education; electricity, water and the internet; blocking humanitarian aid from reaching distressed population.

The afore mentioned are just but a few of the atrocities and war crimes perpetuated by the Cameroonian military across the North West and South West Regions of Southern Cameroons. The after math of these war crimes is a deteriorating humanitarian crisis that has forced the death, disappearance, and fragmentation of families especially while fleeing and escaping from the war, and the search for refuge and survival. Others are living with deep pain and grieve from the loss of their loved one.

Thousands have been killed and many more are being murdered daily. Tens of thousands internally displaced and thousands seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. Villages have been transformed into battle grounds by Cameroon military operations, forcefully leaving the surviving communities with no option but to flee to live in the bushes and forests.  The Cameroon military is constantly reinforcing troops and weapons amidst escalating humanitarian crises.  this is a cause for the people to live in perpetual fear and uncertainty.

These facts belong to us, the SCNC community, and we must do our best to raise the challenge of easing the sufferings of our people. A devastated and traumatised generation of lost hopes, and dreams should not be left unattended as this also comes with a heavy toll on their mental and psychological health. The growing insecurity, fears and uncertainties surrounding the conflict has been a major hindrance and stumbling block for foreign aid to reach those affected especially in remote areas where the conflict is heightened. There is very little coverage compared to the scope of humanitarian crisis as those involved in humanitarian aid have themselves been victims of Cameroonian military operations.

So far, we have been able to raise funds and support three orphanages with food banks. These orphanages are the only homes and hope for over 500 orphans, most of which have lost either one or both parents to the conflict. Some of them were picked up by drivers who were driving through their villages and saw them stranded and helpless, with no one to identify with. So sad indeed.

With escalating violence and limited access to conflict zones, more people are yet to be reached. While putting in the best of our resources to support humanitarian needs of our people, we are looking forward to having more donors join us to raise the challenge of not only providing food, but also shelter as well as other necessities like education. We’re only at the very beginning of our initiative to give back to our communities. Soon, we hope to be able to empower different categories of vulnerable people like the refugees, prisoners of wars, widows/widowers, orphans, and young girls.

As a community, we are fully aware of the fact that every action of humanitarian support is an enforcement of hope with the potential to make a difference in the lives of those concerned. We can’t afford to neglect or not pay corresponding attention to their needs especially in difficult times such as they are facing as victims of war. We want to journey alongside those afflicted to support and build their hopes for a better and brighter future. The current scale of humanitarian crisis is enormous. If we can be consistent today, then it will prepare us to become more impactful in that which we commit to achieve. We will continue to listen and support them in our own capacity while proposing an international intervention to initiate peace talks and end the war in Southern Cameroons.

Author: Emilia Efeti Agey

World Refugee Day celebrates the courage and bravery of refugees and promotes public understanding of and support for those who have been forced to escape their homes due to conflict or natural disaster. It’s a day assigned by the United Nations to recognise and honor refugees all around the world.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres reiterated that “People escaping violence or persecution must be able to cross borders safely. They must not face discrimination at borders or be unfairly denied refugee status or asylum due to their race, religion, gender, or country of origin.

The people of Southern Cameroon were forced to flee their homes sometimes in the midst of darkness to safety in neighboring countries due to the persecution that came their way from the Republic of Cameroon. Southern Cameroonians sought for their basic rights to education, equality, social amenities, infrastructure and respect as a people but were met with military action. What started as a peaceful march by teachers and lawyers escalated to the death of thousands including children and the displacement of much more.

The Southern Cameroonian people have been subject to targeted and mass killings, pilaging and burning of whole villages, mass incarceration and much more. A request for basic freedoms of the people was seen and taken out of proportion by the government and was met with catastrophic reactions which are ongoing till this day which has turned the people into refugees.

Fleeing in every direction, Southern Cameroonians now find themselve scattered across the globe and miles away from their beloved motherland. Kudos to countries such as Nigeria, the United States and other countries for housing and providing a sustainable environment for Southern Cameroonians. Honorary mention to the United Kingdom kept her doors open for Southern Cameroonians as well as made efforts to mediate for a peaceful resolution in the crisis that plagues the blessed Southern Cameroon. The UK has continuously provided shelter as is evident with the presence of the SCNC – Southern Cameroon National Council.

As we celebrate the World Refugee Day, the SCNC UK continues to be gracious to our hosts and continue to look forward to the day our country will be back to her best and hospitable enough for us, once again ensuring and providing institutions and infrastructures to guarantee our rights as a people and uphold our freedoms as citizens.

Author: Richard Ashu Taku