The Cameroonian military may have committed human rights violations and are accused of killing hundreds of unarmed civilians, including women and children, in the Southern area of Cameroon allegedly with the government’s approval under Paul Biya according to videos uploaded online by eye witnesses and victims.
In a report published on Thisday Newspaper on 23rd July, 2018, Professor Amin of Department of History, University of Dayton, Ohio, United States, who recently visited the southern region of Cameroon wrote:
“The impact on the cities in the south of Cameroon are devastating. Residents are in fear and children are gallivanting the streets, many of them out of school as only a few schools are still operating.
Armoured vehicles escorted public transportation vehicles between the different cities in the region. Significant parts of the Southwest Region, a vital Anglophone territory, looked deserted.
The situation is the result of a peaceful protest started two years ago by teachers and lawyers that turned into a brutal conflict between government forces and those fighting for secession over the marginalisation of Anglophone regions.
After two years of brutal conflict, the crisis needs urgent attention. One useful option would be to reschedule the presidential elections recently announced for October 7. Even if that doesn’t happen, the Anglophone region needs help now.”
Videos of Killings
There have been reports of the military clamping down on innocent civilians especially those of the Ambazonian secessionist struggle. Some of these killings are captured on video clips uploaded to the internet by relatives of victims or eye witnesses.
One of such videos that has now gone viral shows men in military uniforms shooting blindfolded women and their children. Cameroon’s government denies its soldiers were involved but has launched an investigation.
The internet is littered with videos of killings allegedly carried out by the Cameroonian forces against the unarmed civilians of Anglophone speaking citizens in the Southern region.
Another video posted on the Youtube page of the “Federal Republic of Ambazonia,” the secessionist movement with its main hold in Southern Cameroon, shows the carnage carried out by forces loyal to the government of Paul Biya against its members.
A documentary by France 24 details the chaos in Ambazonia here:
The US condemned human rights violations in Cameroon :
In 2016, Amnesty International condemned the excessive and abusive use of force against demonstrators in Bamenda, the regional capital of North-West. The Amnesty statement followed that of the Roman Catholic Church on same issue. Amnesty International observed that the Yaoundé regime demonstrated a frightful and unloving attitude against the Anglophone communities in the country. The authoritative human rights defense group denounced the brutal police repression against peaceful and unarmed demonstrators in the Anglophone section of the country.
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