Damning report of assassinations and rape in the Anglophone Regions, Army defends itself on RFI
Damning report of assassinations and rape in the Anglophone Regions, Army defends itself on RFI
In a report made public yesterday, Thursday, August 11, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced the killings and “arbitrary detention” of Cameroon’s security and defense forces, in the English-speaking area commonly known as NoSo.
In the report HRW bluntly notes that “Cameroonian soldiers summarily killed at least ten people and committed several other abuses between April 24 and June 12 during counter-insurgency operations in the North West region of Cameroon”.
According to the organization’s researchers, the Republican forces have strayed from their mission to protect civilian populations. As part of the struggle between them and the separatists, they have rather committed violence against the latter. Therefore, Hrw believes that the country’s authorities should carry out credible and impartial investigations leading to the sanctions of the perpetrators of the various abuses.
The army in the report is accused of having “destroyed and looted health centres, arbitrarily detained at least 26 people and forcibly removed some 17 others”.
“Cameroonian authorities should carry out credible and impartial investigations and hold their perpetrators to account,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, researcher on the
In the army camp, the Defense Forces uphold their professionalism and loyalty in the face of the latest Human Right Watch report which overwhelms them.
For the Cameroonian army, the NGO and its report cannot be credible. For good reason, those who finance it and direct its operations have unacknowledged objectives to achieve in Cameroon.
“This is a particularly dark agenda (…). We have ours, that of protecting our country and its institutions. It is a sacred duty carried out with honour, fidelity and loyalty by the Defense and Security Forces,” army spokesman Colonel Cyrille Serge Atonfack Nguemo told our colleagues at Rfi.
