|
\u003cp\u003eAnglophone Cameroon has been under curfew for most of the past two years. Fighting between armed separatists and government forces in the administrative regions of Southwest and Northwest began in 2017 and intensified in 2018 ahead of the October presidential elections. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF), the military wing of the separatist movement, waged a series of hit-and-run attacks against the Cameroonian Armed Forces, after Yaoundé cracked down on a wave of peaceful protests demanding political representation and cultural rights for the Anglophone minority. As a result of the clashes, more than 2,000 people have reportedly been killed, with extra-judicial killings and kidnappings taking place on a daily basis in the run-up to the election. Caught between government reprisals and militia intimidation, civilians have fled their homes and dozens of villages have been burnt. According to a report published by the \u003cspan\u003e\u003ca href=\u0022https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/cmr_nw_sw_fa_2018-05_summary_v07_light_0.pdf\u0022\u003eUN\u003c/a\u003e in May,\u003c/span\u003e at least 160,000 people have been internally displaced, while over 20,000 have been registered as refugees in Nigeria.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArmed with hunting rifles, small guns and knives, the ADF uses guerrilla tactics to challenge a well-equipped and highly sophisticated army, trained by France and the United States. Government troops retain control of the main urban centres, while the ADF operates in villages and remote territories, where soldiers are fewer and poor road infrastructure limits the direct reach of the state. Government operations have, however, severely disrupted the ADF chain of command, forcing it to operate in a more clandestine fashion. As a result, it is now unclear who is in charge of the separatist forces. To complicate the dynamics of the violence on the ground, other armed groups operate in the same areas, some with criminal affiliations and others loosely linked to the ADF. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhy is this important?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCameroon is a key member of the Multinational Joint Task Force fighting the Boko Haram insurgency in its northernmost region, squeezed between Nigeria to the West and Chad to the East, and contributes just over 1,000 troops to MINUSCA, the UN’s stabilisation mission in the Central African Republic (CAR). It hosts nearly \u003cspan\u003e\u003ca href=\u0022https://data2.unhcr.org/en/country/cmr\u0022\u003e300,000\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e refugees from the CAR in its impoverished eastern region. This area is also on a key cattle-trafficking route through the porous and insecure border, where the humanitarian emergency offers a fertile recruiting ground for Boko Haram and increases the likelihood of a southern expansion of the farmer–herder conflict from the Lake Chad Basin. Any escalation of the conflict in the south would inevitably stretch even the well-funded and well-trained Cameroonian army, and thus compromise regional efforts to mitigate militant jihadism, and to enhance border security and peacekeeping. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\u0022https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/AFR1791342018ENGLISH.pdf\u0022\u003eReports\u003c/a\u003e of human-rights violations by Cameroonian Armed Forces against local populations have already tainted the success of the operation against Boko Haram. The harsh suppression of separatist activities (both peaceful and violent alike) in southern Cameroon suggests that the government’s response to dissent is unlikely to change soon. The lead-up to the October election triggered more violence, with separatists seeking to enforce a boycott and government troops aiming to quash their armed challenge.\u003c/p\u003e","className":"richtext reading--content font-secondary"}), document.getElementById("react_jLybdoAVkGzknIjVBgThw"))});
\u003cp\u003eFighting between armed separatists and government forces in Cameroon’s economically important Anglophone south has been going on for nearly two years. Francesca Grandi explains why the region can ill-afford any further escalation in the violence.\u003c/p\u003e
|
