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Friday, January 4, 2019

Anglophone Crisis: Alleged Sponsor of Separatist Fighters Hunted by Security Agents

 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

 

 

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