Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for investigation into alleged killing of at least ten people by Cameroonian soldiers during counter-insurgency operations in the northwest region of Cameroon.
The rights organisation, in a report on Thursday, alleged that the country’s soldiers carried out a series of other abuses between April and June 2022 in the region.
The troops, according to HRW, also burnt 12 homes, destroyed and looted health facilities, and arbitrarily detained at least 26 people.
‘Instead of protecting the population from threats posed by armed groups, the Cameroonian security forces have committed serious violations against civilians, causing many to flee their homes’, Senior Central Africa Researcher at HRW, Ilaria Allegrozzi, said.
‘Cameroonian authorities should conduct credible and impartial investigations into these serious abuses and hold the abusers accountable’.
HRW said its researchers, between 03 June and 21 July, interviewed 35 people with knowledge of four incidents in which the security forces allegedly committed serious abuses.
According to the organisation, interviewees included 16 witnesses, eight family members of victims, a community leader, three journalists, five members of civil society organisations (CSOs), and two human rights lawyers.
‘The incidents took place in and around the towns and villages of Belo, Chomba, Missong, and Ndop. Human Rights Watch also reviewed 53 photographs and 16 videos, shared directly with researchers, showing evidence of the military violations’, the report read.
Cameroon’s northwest and southwest regions have been rocked by violence after separatists declared the independence of ‘Ambazonia’.
The fighting between government security forces and armed groups, which has lingered since 2016, started when lawyers and teachers took to the streets of Buea and Bamenda to protest the domination of French in Anglophone courts and schools.
The violence has caused about 6,000 deaths and a major humanitarian crisis, with almost 600,000 people internally displaced within the Anglophone and neighbouring regions, and over 77,000 forced to become refugees in Nigeria.
Freedom House ranked Cameroon as ‘not free’ in its 2022 Freedom in the World study of political rights and civil liberties, with the Central African country earning 15 points out of a possible 100.
Photo source: Jbdodane
