Daily Times

In Cameroon’s anglophone regions, humanitarian workers are increasingly caught up in the country’s separatist conflict, facing threats and violence from both sides as they struggle to deliver aid. Looting of convoys, attacks on food handouts, even kidnapping: all are part of the risks to aid workers in Cameroon’s troubled Northwest and Southwest regions, where thousands have been displaced by fighting between separatist rebels and the military since 2017.

Three food distributions were halted in one week alone recently, according to witnesses who spoke to AFP by telephone.

A man aged 29 was shot by soldiers at Ekona village in Southwest Region as people gathered on February 19 to receive rice and other rations from the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN agency and villagers said. Ten soldiers sorted 220 internally displaced people by gender and age, said a witness who “hid for my life” in grass nearby.

“They beat up everybody and took with them seven of the young guys inside one class of the primary school where they were supposed to do the distribution. They started intimidating the guys, (claiming) that they are separatists,” said the witness, who asked not to be named. The soldiers pulled a young man out of the group and shot him in the groin, the witness said. “He bled to death before the eyes of the military and everyone was there watching helplessly,” he added. His account was confirmed by another villager and a regional NGO. The two regions are home to Cameroon’s large anglophone minority, who account for nearly a fifth of the population of 24 million. Years of grievances at perceived discrimination snowballed into a declaration of independence in October 2017, which was followed by a government crackdown. The conflict has claimed more than 3,000 lives and forced almost 700,000 people to flee their homes. Health centres and schools have closed, while whole villages have been burned down.

Army denial

Rights monitors have said separatist rebels and the army are both guilty of atrocities or abuses. Sources say they have carried out attacks on, or disrupted, humanitarian aid.

Army spokesman Colonel Cyrille Atonfack Guemo dismissed reports of military brutality as “attempts at disinformation” aimed at “tarnishing the image of our forces”. “It is inconceivable that the army, whose mission is to work to improve living conditions… should at the same time oppose the work of humanitarian organisations,” the colonel said. Witnesses said the same soldiers who disrupted food distribution at Ekona had been there before, on December 24. The troops arrested a humanitarian volunteer and took him to a police station.

“His body, with signs of torture, was found in early January in the bush about 30 kilometres (19 miles) away,” said one witness, whose account was backed up by an aid worker who asked for anonymity. Humanitarian personnel can feel “caught between two forces, finding yourself on a very fine line,” said Ayah Abine, president of the Ayah Foundation, a Cameroonian NGO. Soldiers often move in just after humanitarian deliveries, if not during them, while the “ambas” — secessionist fighters — will threaten or kidnap NGO staff if they suspect them of working for the government.