In western Cameroon, rebels and the army have been clashing for seven years. This Monday, around twenty people, including women and children, were killed in a new attack on a village by English-speaking separatists, according to security officials and local authorities.
The tragedy took place at night in the village of Egbekaw (South-West region). “The attack left around twenty dead, men, women and children, and ten seriously injured people are in hospital,” assured a senior official of the region’s administration, on condition of anonymity. Since the end of 2016, a deadly conflict has pitted armed independence groups and security forces, each accused of crimes against civilians by international NGOs and the UN, in the North-West and South-West regions, populated mainly by the English-speaking minority of this predominantly French-speaking Central African country.
A still provisional assessment
Rebels “attacked the civilian populations of Egbekaw and the provisional toll is 23 dead and around fifteen houses burned,” a local gendarmerie officer who also requested anonymity also told AFP by telephone.
A senior official from the Cameroon Human Rights Commission (CDHC) confirmed the attack and cited a provisional toll of 15 dead. “But this figure can change,” assured the member of this government body. In Cameroon, information concerning attacks, or actions involving law enforcement, is always officially communicated several hours or even several days later.
They “shot the sleeping residents”
The country has been ruled with an iron fist for forty-one years to the day by President Paul Biya, aged 90. The attack on Egbekaw was not claimed but the midday news on the radios and public television attributed it “to the separatists”. “It happened at 4 a.m. Armed young people came and shot residents sleeping in their houses and set fire to an entire block of houses,” said a village resident mid-morning who requested anonymity for security reasons.
“We have already pulled 23 people out of the rubble, some of whom are not even recognizable because of the fire,” he continued. “We can think that it is linked to November 6, the anniversary of President Biya’s accession to power,” believes this resident, who adds: “a meeting of the CPDM [Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais, le tout-puissant parti présidentiel] was planned in the surrounding area,” he says.
“Atrocities” committed by both parties
The attacks by the rebels, who call themselves the “Ambazonians” (from the name of an “Ambazonia” whose independence they unilaterally proclaimed in 2017), frequently attack civilians whom they accuse of “collaborating” with Yaounde. The security forces are also regularly accused by international NGOs and the UN of “blunders”, killings and other torture of civilians whom they suspect of sympathizing with the rebels.
On October 4, two villagers were publicly executed in the market of the village of Guzang, in the North-West, by a group who accused them of providing information to the army. The rebels also carry out kidnappings of civilians accused, or not, of “collaborating”, which are resolved in most cases by the payment of ransoms. At the beginning of July, Amnesty International was once again alarmed by “atrocities” suffered by civilians, in particular “extrajudicial executions”, “homicides” of residents including women and children, “torture” and “rapes”, perpetrated by armed separatists as well as by members of the security forces.