West Cameroon has been the scene for three years of deadly fighting between soldiers and armed separatists. This fight made a new drama Friday, February 14. Armed men killed 22 civilians, including 14 children and women, in a village in a province populated by the English-speaking minority in north-western Cameroon, the United Nations (UN) announced to Agence France on Sunday -Press (AFP).
The opposition and local NGOs have accused the government and the military, who are fighting English-speaking secessionist armed groups, of being responsible for the killing, which was denied to the AFP by a military spokesperson.
“The evidence indicates that the majority of the victims are women and children”, James Nunan, the head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for the North West and South West regions of Cameroon, told AFP by telephone. “There were at least twenty-two deaths, among them fourteen children, including eleven girls and nine under the age of 5, a pregnant mother and two women who carried their babies”added Mr. Nunan.
The drama took place around 2 p.m. on Friday in the village of Ntumbo, said Nunan, whose team gathered “Many testimonies” to establish this balance sheet.
3,000 dead in three years
Clashes between soldiers and armed separatists in the north-west and south-west of the country, as well as the atrocities and crimes committed by the two camps, according to international NGOs, have killed more than 3,000 people in the past three years and forced more than 700,000 people flee their homes.
The Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), one of the two main opposition parties, has “Condemned the massacre” women and children, in a statement. “The dictatorial regime” and “The supreme head of the security and defense forces are primarily responsible for these crimes”, continues the party.
The MRC is the party of Maurice Kamto, who came second in the presidential election of 2018 behind Paul Biya, the irremovable head of state, 86 years old including 37 in power.
On his Facebook page, lawyer Félix Agbor Mballa, president of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), condemned “The horrible murder” of “Women and children (…) by the state defense forces”. “All the testimonies accuse the army”, also launched on Twitter the opponent Edith Kah Walla, presidential candidate in 2011.
“False” simply replied to the AFP on Sunday morning an army communications officer.
Elections without official public results
This new drama affecting the English-speaking minority in this formerly predominantly French-speaking French colony, occurred almost a week after the legislative and municipal elections which saw low participation according to the African Union (AU), in particular in the two English-speaking provinces. , where separatist armed groups had forbidden people to go to the polls and promised reprisals to those who risked it. Yaoundé had dispatched significant military reinforcements.
More than 100 people had been kidnapped in the two regions by rebels in the two weeks before the elections, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which accused the security forces of committing “New abuses” in the same period. Neither the official results of this election, nor even the turnout, have been made public by the government to date.
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