Anglophone Cameroon: HRW accuses army of “murders” and “arbitrary detentions”

For five years, the southwest and north-west regions have been plunged into a separatist conflict with the central power of Yaoundé.

Le Monde with AFP

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused, Thursday, August 11, the Cameroonian army of “murders” and “arbitrary detentions” in an English -speaking region where a murderous conflict has opposed armed groups for forces for five years of the order.

“Cameroonian soldiers summarily killed at least ten people and committed several other abuses between April 24 and June 12 during anti-insurgency operations in the region of northwest Cameroon,” noted the NGO In a report, claiming that members of the police have “destroyed and looted health centers, arbitrarily detained at least 26 people and would have force some 17 others.”

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 they call “ambazonia” and forces of Safety massively deployed by the power of President Paul Biya, 89, who has directed Cameroon with an iron fist for almost forty years.

Part of the English -speaking population considers themselves ostracized by French speakers. The conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people since the end of 2016 and forced more than a million people to move, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) center.

Rebels like the military and the police are regularly accused by international NGOs and the UN of committing abuses and crimes against civilians.

“serious human rights violations”

HRW spoke about the attack, the 1 June, by Cameroonian soldiers from the village of Missong, a hamlet of the North West region, which ended in the death of Nine people, including four women and an 18 -month -old girl, “in a reprisals against a community suspected of sheltering separatist fighters”. The army had then recognized an “mistake” and “an inappropriate reaction, unsuitable for the occasion and manifestly disproportionate”.

In June, according to HRW, the security forces “summarily killed a man, injured another, burned at least 12 houses, destroyed a community health center and looted at least 10 stores” in Belo.

Questioned by AFP, the Ministry of Defense had not reacted immediately.

“The Cameroonian authorities should conduct credible and impartial surveys and request accounts from the authors” of these abuses, urged the Ilaria Allegrozzi report, researcher on Central Africa at HRW.

The human rights NGO had accused in a report published in late June the rebels of the English-speaking regions of committing “serious human rights violations”.