It has been nearly a week since the humanitarian NGO Doctors Without Borders unilaterally announced the suspension of its activities in southwestern Cameroon. A resounding decision, probably an expression of the fed up of this organization regularly accused by the Cameroonian authorities of being in collision with the separatist fighters in this region in crisis. In Yaoundé, we denounce a maneuver perceived as a headlong rush.
With our correspondent in Yaoundé, Polycarp Essomba
It is a suspension of activity which did not really surprise in Yaoundé, at the Ministry of Territorial Administration. A first-rank official spoke, anonymously, for RFI, of a headlong rush and blackmail in bad taste on the part of MSF. And the said official to recall an injunction to all NGOs operating in Cameroon, which had been made by his boss, Minister Paul Atanga Nji, in August 2021, to provide the administration with a set of binding documents constituting the file authorizing to practice in Cameroon.
Tense climate
In the crosshairs of the authorities, MSF was already accused, very explicitly, of having provided assistance and treatment to a formidable separatist fighter without informing the authorities. In the press release in which it announces the suspension of its activities in the South-West, the humanitarian organization itself indicates that its ability to operate in complete freedom has been hampered by the tense climate which reigns between the NGO and the authorities which accuse him of complicity with separatist groups.
Regret
Concerned civil society did not fail to react. Maximilienne Ngo Mbe, who heads one of the most important human rights associations, said she regretted this suspension. She invited MSF not to abdicate for the good of the populations of the South-West.
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