Trapped between Anglophone Militants and Army

Ngabi Dora Tue, she consumed sadness, she could barely stand alone.

The coffin of her husband, Johnson Mabia, judged in the middle of a crowd affected in Limbe in the Cameroon’s southwest region – an area that has been scene several times before.

While on the work journey Johnson – a civil servant in English speaking – and five colleagues trapped by armed separatists.

Militants were – they still fight for the independence of two Anglophone regions in what is predominantly Francophone country. A few decades, the conflict led to a thousand deaths and astonishing life in the area.

When he kidnapped four years ago, Dora struggled to get to Johnson. When it was eventually heard from separatist militants, they demanded the ransom of over $ 55,000 (41,500 pounds) to be paid within 24 hours to ensure its release. Dora then received another call from one of Johnson’s relatives.

“He said … I should take care of the kids. If my husband didn’t even know what to do. Tuesday traveled, and he was kidnapped. Friday was killed.

The responsible separatists did not just kill, but shaped Johnson and left the body on the road.

The roots of separatist struggle lies in many years of complaints returning to full independence in 1961. and formation of a unique state of camera in 1972. years since the former Britain and French territories.

Since then, a minority in English was felt damaged in the perceived erosion of law by the Central Government. Johnson was just an innocent movable, caught in all brutal combat for self-determination and desperate government attempts to despair the uprising.

The current wave of violence began for almost a decade ago.

At the end of 2016, peaceful protests began against what was perceived to be the pueplofone of the legal system of Frankophone in the courtrooms. The French and English parts of the Cameroon use different judicial systems.

Protests are spread quickly and have led to calls for closing actions and institutions.

The response of security forces was immediate and heavy – people were beaten, intimidated and there were mass arrest. The African Union called it “deadly and disproportional use of violence”.

Camero Ministry of Defense did not answer the requests for comment on this or other issues in this article.

The armed groups are set. In late 2017, as tensions were escalated, Anglophone separatist leaders declared independence due to what they called the Federal Republic of the Ambasizony.

To date, five million Anglophophony camerosers drove the equivalent to the population. At least 6,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes.

“We used to wake up on dead bodies on the streets,” says Blaise Eiong, a journalist from Cameroon, who produced and presented a documentary about the crisis for the BBC Africa eye and was forced from his hometown in 2019. Years.

“Or you hear the house is set. Or you hear someone is kidnapped. Parts of people are chopped in the city where you cared every morning if your cousins ​​are safe?”

There has been a large number of national and international attempts to solve the crisis, including what the government called “main national dialogue” in 2019. Years.

Although conversations have established a special status of two Anglofons in a country that has recognized their unique history, very little is solved in a practical sense.

Felix Agbor Nkongho – a lawyer who was one of the leaders of Protest 2016. years and later was arrested – says that there are now an impunity on both sides, a morally high place is gone.

“There was a time … where most people felt it, if they needed security, they would go to separatists,” says the BBC Africa is an eye.

“But in the last two years I don’t think that any reasonable person would make them protect them. So everyone should die for us that we have independence and asking: To whom you set:”

But these are not only separatists who are charged with abuse.

Organizations such as Human Rights Watch recorded a brutal response of security forces into the movement of the independence of the Anglophone. They documented the ignition of villages and torture, illegal arrests and the VanSudsum killings of people in the war largely innocent by the outside world.

Examples of brutality sponsoring the state are not difficult to find.

John (not his real name) and close friend took the Cameronian military forces in custody, accused of purchasing a separatist group weapon.

John remembers that after the prison, they would receive a document that was told to sign without having the opportunity to read his content. When they refused, torture began.

“Then they separated us into different rooms,” John says. “They tortured (my friend). You could only make them felt everywhere. I could have accepted and signed him that he accepted and signed him that he accepted and signed him that he had accepted and signed it.”

But that was not true.

One month after the arrest, the other man arrived at John’s cell. He told him that his friend actually died in the room where he was held and tortured. John’s case was rejected for months and was released free of charge.

“I’m just living in fear because I really don’t know where to start from or where it’s safe to start or how,” says John.

The part of the separatist strategy to weaken the state and its security forces is prohibited for the prohibition of education that say is the means of government propaganda.

In October 2020. school was attacked in Kumba. No one has taken responsibility for the crime, but the government blamed separatists. Men armed with swords and rifles killed at least seven children.

The incident was briefly distorted, international disapproval and condemnation and condemnation.

“Almost half of the schools in this region is closed,” says Journalist Eiong.

“The entire generation of children disappeared on their education. Imagine an impact that will have for our communities and also for our country.”

It was not enough for violence between government forces and various separatist groups, an additional front opened in the war. The militant groups in separatist areas appeared to fight the ambazone in an effort to keep Cameroon United.

The leader of one of these groups, John Evome (known as Mine), regularly led patrols in the city of Buje in search of separatists until arrested in May 2024. Years.

He is also charged with human rights violations, public humiliation and torture of unarmed civilians believe that separatist sympathizers are. He denies charges. “I never laid my hands on a civilian. Only embases. And I believe the gods of this country are with me,” he said to the BBC.

Meanwhile, kidnapping and murders continues.

Joe (not his real name) was like Johnson, which Johnson, who took a hostage by the separatist group, wants to keep control through fear – and cash in cash.

“I entered the house and found my wife on the floor, when I saw them, when I saw them, when I saw them, I knew it was my turn, I knew it was my turn, I knew it was My turn, I knew it was my turn, I knew it was my turn, I knew it was my turn, I knew it was my turn.

He led him in the woods with 15 more people in which he testified to the execution of two his colleagues. But in the end he was released after the army was discovered by the camp.

Johnson had so much happiness and, about two years after his burial, news arrived that neither his five colleagues kidnapped with him. Their bodies just found.

More families will now have to try to calm down with their huge loss. For Ngabi Dora, sitting with his young child in her lap, the future feels almost irresistible.

“I have debts I need to settle, I don’t even know how to settle for,” she says.

“I thought I was selling my body for money. And then I’d look in shame that would come after, I just need to swallow the difficulty. I was very young to become great to become a widow.”

The BBC requested an answer from the defense forces of the Ambasium (ADF), which claims that the largest separatist strength is.

He replied that there are many separatist fighters in the Anglophone region.

The ADF said to act in international law and not attacking government workers, schools, journalists or civilians.

Instead, he blamed individuals and entities in Fingu operating at his own agreement not by ADF members for these attacks.

The group also accuses the Infiltrate Government to commit crimes, while they claim that ambazine struggles to turn local population against the liberation struggle.