In Cameroon, in the North-West region, at least nine inhabitants of the district of Oku have been held prisoner since the beginning of April. They were arrested by an armed separatist group after taking part in a march demanding an end to the violence. No official communication from the authorities has been issued to date. The case was made public via several videos on the internet.
On the first video, broadcast at the end of March, in a green and mountainous landscape, dozens of women walk brandishing sticks and twigs. ” Ambazonians must leave! too much suffering “Shouts this woman, who lists the violence she attributes to separatist fighters.
A few days later, a new video is uploaded. It shows a captive man and nine women, some of whom are elderly and forced to partially undress. The man has a swollen face. One woman cries, the other prays. A male voice questions them. Asking them to say today’s date: April 6, 2022; to repeat that they are all from Oku.
The authors of the video then ask the women why they demonstrate against the separatists and not against the soldiers when the latter mistreat them.
Reached by telephone, Capo Daniel, one of the executives in exile of the separatist group which published the video, explains that these women are still being held. They are accused of having been paid and trained by the captured man to demonstrate against the “amba boys”. Capo Daniel also claims that his movement the Ambazonian Defense Forces is investigating which networks are, in his words, trying to turn the local population against the separatists.
For Caryn Dasah of the Women’s Movement for Peace in Cameroon, people in rural areas of the two majority English-speaking regions are exhausted and want the guns to be silenced. Whatever the origin of the demonstration of the women of Oku, they are, she says, the first victims of the crisis and she calls for their release.