Report Highlights Evidence of Atrocities in Cameroon

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has published a report which shows evidence of atrocities commited by security forces in Cameroon.

Part of the report reads;

“On Friday, 10 August, a new video surfaced online showing Cameroonian security forces shooting dead at least 12 unarmed people during an operation in Achigaya village in the country’s Far North region. In the video, filmed in May 2016, a number of villagers are forced to lay in front of a wall before several soldiers open fire on them.

This is the second video to emerge from Cameroon in less than a month depicting members of security forces carrying out extrajudicial killings. The Cameroonian government is currently battling the armed extremist group Boko Haram in the remote north of the country, and also violently suppressing an armed rebellion in the Anglophone part of the country.

Report Highlights Evidence of Atrocities in Cameroon

Following international condemnation of the previous video – in which two women and two children were summarily executed by Cameroonian soldiers – the Minister of Communication said that the government had opened an investigation and arrested seven military personnel. A government spokesperson said they would now investigate the second video.

On 10 August the UN Security Council adopted a Presidential Statement on the situation in the Central African region. Among other issues, the Statement highlights the “worrying increase in violence in the north-west and south-west regions of Cameroon.”

The crisis in Cameroon has direct implications for peace and stability in the sub-region, with the risk of increased conflict in the Anglophone region in advance of elections scheduled for 7 October. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs has reported over 21,000 Cameroonians have already fled to neighboring Nigeria as a result of violence.

The videos support a growing body of evidence that the Cameroonian security forces are committing systematic and/or widespread attacks on civilians in the Northwest, Southwest and Far North regions, potentially amounting to crimes against humanity. It is imperative that all military operations targeting civilian populations cease immediately and that any personnel responsible for unlawful killings be held accountable for their actions.”