Amnesty International Condemns Biya’s Regime Over Rights Violation In Ambazonia

The human rights organization known as Amnesty International has published a report detailing the ongoing conflict across Anglophone Cameroon. 

The rights watchdog lay blames on La Republique Du Cameroun (LRC) colonial forces atrocities in Ambazonia (Anglophone Cameroon) detailing targeted killings, maiming, looting, burning of communities, kangaroo arrests etc, all of which have contributed in escalating the violence. 

The organisation however picked holes with some aspects of separatists arm groups though they could not substantiate any evidences.

According to the June 11 publication, reviewed by BaretaNews, Amnesty International faults LRC forces for the destruction of villages, extracting forced confessions through torture, indiscriminate firing at crowds of unarmed civilians.

Amnesty International Condemns Biya’s Regime Over Rights Violation In Ambazonia

Having conducted interviews of some 150 victims, gathered material evidence through satellite imagery and eye-witness accounts of these acts, the rights watchdog has showcased how the general population of the people of Ambazonia is bearing the brunt of Biya’s forces as the violence persists.

The Deputy Director of Amnesty International for West and Central Africa, Samira Daoud, had this to say concerning the ongoing conflict in Ambazonia ”People in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions are in the grip of a deadly cycle of violence. 

Security forces have indiscriminately killed, arrested and tortured people during military operations which have also displaced thousands of civilians. Their heavy-handed response will do nothing to calm the violence-in fact it is likely to further alienate Anglophone communities and fuel further unrest.”

A series of protest movements and strike actions by teachers, lawyers and students in late 2016 saw the brutality of La Republique’s security personnel. Solidifying the reasons behind the general cry of marginalization and discrimination by the Yaounde government against the people of Ambazonia. 

Large scale peaceful demonstrations organized across the territory of Ambazonia between September 22 and October 1,2017 which saw the military crackdown has only intensify the call for an independent Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.

Since late last year’s series of peaceful protests, La Republique’s military has arbitrarily arrested individuals, resort of extrajudicial killings, rape and torture, burning of buildings to the ground. Photographic evidence obtained by Amnesty International show the total destruction of the village of Kwakwa following a December 2017 operation. 

In Dadi village, 23 people were arrested and detained alongside minors. Torturing them while in their custody to extract confessions. Some are blindfolded and seriously beaten with a variety of objects. All of such accounts have been documented by the international human rights watchdog group.

Neba Benson,

BaretaNews Foreign Correspondent/Analyst