Day: April 8, 2022

Anglophone Cameroonian separatists have abducted at least a dozen people who were protesting what they said are the rebels’ brutality and crimes. The separatists claim the government of the majority French-speaking country paid the protesters to discredit the separatists, which authorities deny.

A video widely circulated on social media shows suspected separatists forcing a man and 11 women to confess that the government paid women in Oku, an English-speaking western town, to conduct street protests of fighters’ alleged abuses. The man has bruises all over his face and the women look tired. They were among several hundred people who protested in Oku.

The suspected separatists say within the past two weeks, similar protests took place in Njikejem, Manchock, Ngemsibaa and Elak, farming and cattle ranching villages in Cameroon’s English-speaking North-West region.

The Cameroon military said the video was taken by separatist fighters in Elak on April 6, and that 14 women were abducted, not just the 11 shown. They did not offer information on the missing three.

Capo Daniel, deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of Cameroon’s separatist groups, said those abducted were hired to discredit separatists by government officials and members of the local elite who support Cameroon’s central government in Yaoundé.

“The group of people you see in that video are individuals that were arrested [abducted] by our forces in Oku,” he said. “The man you see in front is the ringleader. Twelve persons were arrested, four of them have been released, eight of them are going through interrogations, and anybody who is found guilty of collaborating with an alien and foreign government that is occupying our territory will have to face the consequences of his actions.”

Capo said a few fighters found guilty of abusing civilians’ rights were punished but gave no further details. He also said Cameroon’s military abuses the rights of civilians more than the separatists do.

The military has always denied it abuses civilians’ rights.

Government officials in the North-West region deny the women were paid to protest and discredit separatist fighters.

The government said similar protests took place this week in Mbalangi, a village in the English-speaking South-West region, where the military said four women were abducte, but did not say whether they had regained their freedom.

Fifty-six-year-old farmer Ngale Dorothy took part in the Mbalangi protest. She told local media that people are angry about crimes committed against women, especially separatist fighters’ widows.

She said scores of men have been killed by separatist fighters in Mbalangi village, and that the fighters rape girls and widows, and harass civilians who do not give money to show support for the separatist fight. She said the Cameroon military should protect Mbalangi villagers from heinous crimes committed by fighters.

Separatists have been fighting to carve out an independent English-speaking state in majority French-speaking Cameroon since 2017.

Human Rights Watch, in a report in August, accused both the military and the armed separatists of abusing civilians’ rights in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions. The organization stressed the urgent need to protect communities at risk and to hold those responsible for abuses to account.

The United Nations says at least 3,300 people have been killed and 750,000 internally displaced during the years of separatist violence.

Source: Voice of America

Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Russia suspended from UN Human Rights Council over war

In a rare move, the U.N. General Assembly voted 93-24 on Thursday to suspend Russia’s membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council over Moscow’s “gross and systematic violations of human rights” and violations of international law committed against Ukraine. Russia said after the vote that it was withdrawing from the body on its own. Its three-year term was due to expire December 31, 2023.

Russia Suspended from UN Human Rights Body

VOA spoke to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield right after the vote. Watch the full interview here:

Ukrainian president scolds UN Security Council for inaction

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admonished the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday for its inaction in stopping Russia’s war against his country and called for Moscow to face accountability for crimes it has carried out there. “We are dealing with a state that is turning the U.N. Security Council veto into the right to die,” Zelenskyy said of Russia, which has used its veto to block any action in the council.

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Chides UN Security Council for Lack of Action

UN gathering evidence of possible war crimes in Bucha

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that it was gathering evidence of possible war crimes committed by Russian forces in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Shocking images of civilians lying dead on the town’s streets emerged after Russia troops withdrew from the area last weekend. Under international law, the deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime.

UN Rights Office Gathering Evidence of Possible War Crimes in Bucha, Ukraine

UN seeks access to Mali massacre site

The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, El-Ghassim Wane, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday he welcomed the Malian authorities’ opening of an investigation into an alleged massacre of hundreds of civilians by government troops and suspected Russian mercenaries in the village of Moura in late March, but that the U.N. mission, MINUSMA, must also have access to the site. Human rights groups have called for an independent investigation.

Rights Groups Call for Investigation into Mali Killings

In brief

— The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday that it had successfully led a convoy of buses and private cars carrying more than 500 people who fled from the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol to the safer location of Zaporizhzhia. Thousands more civilians remain trapped in Mariupol. The mayor said this week that at least 5,000 civilians had been killed during the Russian siege of the city.

— The United Nations warned Friday that as many as 6 million Somalis could face the risk of famine if the rainy season failed as expected and global food prices continued to rise. Three poor consecutive rainy seasons have deepened the country’s drought, plunging millions of people to crisis levels of food insecurity.

— U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed news Wednesday that a convoy carrying food aid and fuel had reached northern Ethiopia’s Tigray and Afar regions following the declaration of a humanitarian truce. But on Friday, the U.N. said it had not been able to get any further aid into Tigray. The International Committee of the Red Cross also was able to get a convoy carrying medical assistance, food and water treatment supplies into Afar last Saturday. It was the group’s first road convoy to reach the region in six months.

— The World Health Organization said Thursday that the number of COVID-19 cases in Africa could be 97% higher than confirmed reported cases. WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said two-thirds of Africans might have been infected. WHO has confirmed 11.6 million cases of COVID-19 on the continent, including more than 250,000 deaths. The new data suggests the actual numbers are much higher.

Some good news

The first nationwide truce in Yemen in six years went into effect on Saturday and appeared to be largely holding. U.N. envoy Hans Grundberg said Thursday that there had been a “significant reduction of violence,” but pockets of fighting continued, particularly around the contested city of Marib. The Yemeni government also released several fuel ships to dock in Houthi-held Hodeida port, which will help ease fuel shortages. Preparations were also underway for the first commercial flight to take off from Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport. The truce can be renewed beyond the initial two-month period if parties agree.

Quote of note

“Ukraine needs peace. We need peace. Europe needs peace. The world needs peace.”

— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, appealing to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to stop the war in his country

Source: Voice of America