Update April 2022

From Atrocities Watch Monitor No. 3

April 2022. Read full newsletter here

Violence against civilians increased in from February to March 2022, although the overall number of incidents for the first quarter of 2022 remained substantially lower than the first quarter of 2021.²⁰ Cameroon’s government argued that the military raids on separatist bases that claimed the lives of at least 20 fighters in February, have helped to bring calm to several towns in Anglophone Cameroon.²¹ Despite this, violence in the anglophone region continues. On 2 March, a bomb killed seven people including a senior official and a mayor in the Ekondo Titi district.²² On 16 March, separatists attacked the Nigerian village of Manga hosting people who fled the violence. 21 people are missing and local

Nigerian authorities requested naval and air forces be deployed. The conflict first spilled into Nigeria at the end of 2021.²³ On 28 March, unidentified gunmen, believed to be Ambazonians (anglophone separatists), stormed Magha village in the southwest region and killed a teacher and kidnapped five others.²⁴ On 29 March, Ambazonia forces killed three Mbororos suspected of working with government forces in Mbongong village.²⁵ On 30 March, an improvised explosive device killed a Cameroon’s Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) soldier.²⁶

The Ambazonia Boys have been meeting with the pro-Biafra group, the Biafra Nations League (BNL) separatist group, for possible joint operations from the Peninsula to Ndian division.²⁷ The interim government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia removed its former president Samuel Ikome Sako for abuse of his power²⁸ and Marianta Njomia was elected on 5 March.²⁹

During March clashes between the Esu and Mbororo ethnic groups flared up. Esu’s leader was killed in early March. The government suspects that the attack was carried out by local Mbororo youth who accused him of failing to stop youth from joining the anglophone separatists, the Esu responded by burning homes and buildings of the Mbororo group. The Cameroonian government deployed troops to the area.³⁰

Context:

In 2016, a series of peaceful protests by lawyers and teachers who, in order to protect the Anglophone educational and legal systems, requested the creation of a two-state federation were rapidly suppressed by the government. In response, armed separatist groups then formed to fight for an independent nation called Ambazonia, proclaimed and independent republic in October 2017. Authorities in Yaoundé responded, killing and arresting those who they believed sympathised with the secessionists this drove the formation of Anglophone militias. By the end of 2017, the crisis had degenerated into armed conflict.

International response:

On 8 March, the Hon. Mohammed Sidie Tunis warned fellow members of the ECOWAS Parliament of the need to address what he called an on-going genocide in Cameroon’s anglophone regions, indicating “the rest of the world must applaud and join in this ECOWAS drive as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 15 recognizes Ambazonian people’s right to create a nation, name it, and even move to a new nation.” He called for ECOWAS and AU to intervene in the conflict and prevent it from spilling over to neighboring countries.³¹

On 9 March 2022, in a letter to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, three members of Congress expressed concerns over U.S. support for Cameroonian special forces known as the BIR which have been accused of atrocities in the Anglophone region and that “support for security forces that commit human rights violations — apart from being incompatible with American values and illegal under U.S. law — is counterproductive to the very aims of counterterrorism.”³²

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) indicated it will be suspending indefinitely its activities in the southwest part of the country, due to their deteriorating relationship with the government amidst false accusations of complicity with secessionists.³³

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