By Kits Tanjong
Security forces are
said to be hunting for Oru Raymond, a man who was arrested and reportedly detained
in Mamfe, accused of providing illegal shelter to separatist fighters who are
designated as terrorists by Cameroon government.
It was in December 2018
that Oru Raymond, sources said, took advantage of an outdoor work for inmates
and escaped from detention cell, prompting security agents to launch a manhunt
for him.
Several inmates who attempted to escape along
with Oru Raymond were arrested.
Details of how Oru Raymond, escaped the
vigilance of his guards and disappeared could not be obtained by press time.
Oru,
his mother and sibling had been arrested early October 2018, when security
forces stormed their family residence in Kembong,near Mamfe ,Manyu Division of
the Southwest region, accusing them of sheltering and aiding Amba fighters .
But
the three family members were detained in separate locations.
Reports of security
searches for alleged Amba suspects and or separatists on the run are common as
the Anglophone crisis is escalating and turning more and more bloody and
deadly.
Since the Anglophone
crisis erupted in late 2016 over corporate demands by Common Law advocates and
teachers of the English subsystem of education, fatal clashes between
Government forces and armed separatists have become almost a weekly occurrence
in towns and villages of the two English-speaking Northwest and Southwest
regions of Cameroon.
The crisis, which
turned bloody and violent in late 2017
has resulted in the death of over 3000 citizens, and led to the wanton
destruction of public and private property worth hundreds of billions of Francs
CFA.
About half a million
people have been internally displaced provoking a humanitarian crisis.
According to the UN and other rights groups over forty thousand Cameroonians
fleeing the crisis are seeking asylum in neighboring Nigeria.
The Cameroon government
is battling hard to overpower the armed separatist fighters, who want an
independent state for the minority Anglophones who constitute the two
English-speaking regions of the country’s ten regions (eight of which are
French-speaking).
With increasing
resistance by the separatists, the Cameroon government has repeatedly accused
Anglophone separatist leaders and activists abroad of sponsoring and
instigating the violence and vandalism reportedly perpetrated by the Amba fighters
back home.
The crisis has been
characterized by ghost towns, killings, kidnappings, rape, violence, beheading
of so-called blacklegs, burning of houses and physical torture of suspects.
President Paul Biya,
who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, has insisted Cameroon is “one and
indivisible” and considers calls from Anglophone activists for separation as a
threat to national unity
The Cameroonian
leader has also likened the separatists to terrorists and has reiterated his
determination to neutralize them, if they don’t drop their arms.
The Government has blacklisted some Anglophone leading activists abroad and has requested their host countries to repatriate them to Cameroon for prosecution.
They include: Mark
Berata, Cho Ayaba,Tapang Ivo,Akwanga Ebenezar,Chris Anu and John Mbah Akuroh.
In January 2018, Sisiku
Julius Ayuk Tabe , the first-ever President of the unrecognized Republic of
Ambazonia and his cabinet members were extradited from Nigeria to Cameroon -and
they have since then been incarcerated at the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison
in Yaounde
No comments:
Post a Comment