Gov’t fast-tracks manhunt for suspected activists, separatist sympathisers.

In this light, security and defence forces have been indiscriminately arresting all those suspected to be Ambazonia activists, collaborators and sympathisers.

Sources say the arrested persons are being tortured and detained under inhumane conditions. Some are reported to have died in detention.

For fear of their lives, many have fled and their whereabouts is not known. One of those whom security and defence forces are looking for is Enow Tambe Collete Atu. Her ordeal started sometime in December 2020 when she was arrested at the Douala International Airport, while she was returning from Thailand. She was accused of having been financially supporting the separatists from abroad. Enow was detained under horrible conditions and tortured for days. However, she was later released. 

Meanwhile, on January 11, 2021 while Enow was returning home from her teaching job in Kumba, Meme Division of the South West Region, there was a crossfire between the separatist fighters and the military. She and other teachers took refuge in a house. But unfortunately for them, the military stormed the house believing they were separatists hiding in the house. They were tortured and whisked away to the military camp. In the military camp, Enow is said to have been tortured and later released.

But her torments were far from over. In January 2021, the military broke into Enow’s house and arrested her again. She was taken to the police station where she was severely tortured and detained under very inhumane conditions. 

Because of the torture she went through and alleged rape which she suffered, Enow was hospitalised.

However, she is said to have escaped from the hospital under conditions that remain unclear. Since then, her whereabouts is not known. Security and defence forces have launched a manhunt for her. 

The security and defence forces are reported to have been harassing her family members to disclose her whereabouts. If rearrested, Enow Tambe Collete Atu will be tried in a military tribunal, under the 2014 anti-terrorism law, whose maximum punishment is the death sentence. That is if she is not killed outright, like many others who have been victims of extrajudicial killings within the context of the armed conflict in the North West and South West regions.

Flashback on origin of crisis

It should be recalled that the Anglophone crisis, something that pundits say had been brewing for several years, boiled over in 2016, when Common Law lawyers in the North West and South West regions went on strike. They were demanding for the return of the federal system of government, redeployment of Civil Law Magistrates back to Civil Law Courts in French Cameroon, among other grievances. 

Not long after, teachers in the North West and South West regions also went on strike, demanding for the redress of several issues concerning the English sub system of education. 

Things, however, got worse when Anglophones in both regions, who had been fed up with the unfavourable political and economic situation of the country, the use of French as the dominant and official language, and the marginalisation of the Anglophones, joined the strike. 

The situation later escalated into an armed conflict when some Anglophones picked up arms, fighting for the independence of country they have named Ambazonia.

The crisis has left thousands, both civilians and security and defence forces dead, some 700,000 people displaced with some living in bushes while over 50,000 have fled to neighbouring Nigeria, where they are living as refugees.

Many houses, and even whole villages, have been burnt down in the crisis-hit regions. 

The separatist leader of the self-declared Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, and nine other close associates of his, who were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon, are currently at the Kondengui maximum security prison where they are serving life sentences. They were sentenced by the Yaounde military tribunal in August 2019 on charges including terrorism and secession. 

Many other activists such as Mancho Bibixy, Penn Terrence, Tsi Conrad, among others, are serving jail terms at the Kondengui prison.

While the Anglophone crisis continues to escalate, international organisations and other western powers have called on the government to address the root cause through genuine and inclusive dialogue.