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| Africa Subsaharan | |
| Civilians Accuse Military of Brutality in Cameroon's Anglophone Regions | |
| 2020-09-06 | |
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there... 's military has detained hundreds of people in the country's troubled northwest as they search for separatists following the killing of a police officer this week. Locals accuse the military of carrying out Dire Revenge attacks, including looting and burning shops, in the English-speaking region — a charge the military denies. Thirty-four-year old fish seller Ernestine Sahmo says she has decided to temporarily leave the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda due to what she says is military brutality. Sahmo says she was forced out of her shop by armed soldiers who detained 80 other women at a cop shoppe for three days. "The military entered the whole market and was removing everybody," she said. "They will break into your store and then start brutalizing you, asking you to go out. They succeeded to remove everybody from the food market to the mobile cop shoppe. We were being asked to sit on the ground. Some women were collapsing. The way they terrorized us, we never knew we would come back alive." Sahmo says store owners’ goods were either looted or torched by the military. Last Monday, the government said separatist fighters in Bamenda killed a policeman in active service. The military was then deployed to hunt for the killers. Residents said troops started arresting people indiscriminately, forcing some either to undress or to sit on the floor for several hours. Scared civilians escaped to neighboring villages and French-speaking towns including Mbouda and Bafoussam. The government said at least two non-combatants were killed but did not say if separatists or troops were responsible. General Valere Nka, the commander of government troops fighting the separatists in the English-speaking northwest regions, says the military has not committed any atrocities. He says his troops have remained professional. He says his troops fully obey instructions given by the military hierarchy for civilians to be protected and their human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... respected. Nka says he expects civilians who have been assured of total protection by the military to denounce all suspected separatist fighters in their localities. Mka pledged to kill all fighters who do not drop their weapons and seek forgiveness. Rights groups and opposition political parties have condemned the military for what they say are excesses and torture of civilians in handling the crisis. | |
| Posted by:Fred |