For five years, the regions of the North West and Southwest have been the scene of a deadly conflict between armed groups demanding independence and the State.
Le Monde with AFP
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Monday, June 27, the rebels of the English -speaking regions of Cameroon, where a murderous conflict opposes armed groups with the police with the police, of committing “serious human rights violations “.
“Since January 2022, armed separatist fighters have killed at least seven people, have injured six others, violated a girl and have committed other serious human rights violations,” said the NGO in a report , pointing a “context of resurgence of violence”.
The northwest and southwest regions have been the theater, for five years, of a deadly conflict between armed groups demanding the independence of a state which they call “ambazonia” and Security forces massively deployed by the power of President Paul Biya, 89, who has directed Cameroon with an iron fist for almost 40 years.
Part of the English -speaking population considers themselves ostracized by French speakers. The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people since the end of 2016 and forced more than a million people to move, according to the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG).
Fire of villages, murders, tortures
Rebels and the military and police are regularly accused by international NGOs and the UN of committing abuses and crimes against civilians. Some armed separatist groups regularly attack schools they accuse of teaching in French and kidnap or kill civil servants they accuse of “collaborating” with the central power of Yaoundé.
According to UNICEF, in 2019, some 850,000 children were deprived of school in the two English -speaking regions. The separatists “target civilians who do not observe their calls for boycott of schools” and “trample the fundamental rights of an already terrorized civilian population”, according to HRW.
On June 10, alleged rebels burnt down a hospital in Mamfe, in the Southwest, depriving 85,000 people of access to care. “Government forces have also committed human rights violations, in particular village fires (…), murders, torture, ill -treatment, secrecy and civilian rapes,” said HRW. In early June, nine civilians, including a baby, had been killed by soldiers in the northwest, the army recognizing a “disproportionate reaction” of his men.
The Norwegian Council for Refugees (NRC) had placed English -speaking Cameroon in third place in early June on the list of ten “most neglected” crises of population travel, based on three criteria: the lack of international community policy to find solutions, media coverage and financing humanitarian needs.