An excerpt from a report issued by Human Rights Watch on the plight of Cameroonians who were denied asylum and deported from the United States by the Trump administration, to be detained and abused by Cameroonian authorities when they were forced to return home:
Three Anglophone women deported in October [2020] – Esther, Marie, and Mercy – experienced arbitrary detention, beatings, and rape, after being released from Yassa [a government facility in the city of Douala]. Security forces stopped and arrested all three at checkpoints heading to the Anglophone regions, allegedly due to their lack of IDs and the fact that their movement passes revealed they had been deported.
In late 2020, after gendarmes asked Esther for her ID at a checkpoint en route to Bamenda, North-West region, she presented her movement pass. She said gendarmes told her to get out of her car, asking why she was deported. "They pushed me... One kicked me with his boot, and said, 'Get inside the car'" (into their vehicle). The officers drove Esther to a gendarmerie station in Bamenda and detained her there incommunicado until early December, when a military contact helped her escape. She described how, during 1.5 months of detention, she was tortured, including being raped and beaten, by gendarmes or other military officers:
"I was well beaten... Every two days... they were using ropes, [rubber] tubes, their boots, military belts... They hit me all over my body... They said that I've destroyed the image of Cameroon, because my deportation [paper] shows that I had gone [to the U.S.]...so I had to pay for it. They were saying I might be cooperating with the Ambazonian guys [separatists militia] ... They asked if I'm working with them, I said no. They said I'm lying, that I went out there [to the U.S.] to raise money for them... I finally told them, '...I asked for asylum, but I wasn't granted asylum.'... They told me that since I have tarnished the image of the country, they will also destroy my own life.
"...After I'd been there like a week and some days... [some officers] came and...covered my face with a cloth. I heard voices, I don't know if they were two or three... [They took me] in another room... I was raped... They beat me, they kicked me... They gave me a serious warning, they said if I want my family to see me alive, I just have to stay quiet."
Esther sustained numerous injuries from the rapes by at least two men and the beatings, including wounds and bruises on her back, feet, legs, and buttocks – with one injury documented in a photo reviewed by Human Rights Watch – but said she received no medical treatment in detention.
In addition to the physical abuse, Esther said gendarmes denied her due process, never taking her to court. "I wasn't allowed to make any calls. They said I'm a terrorist, that I'm cooperating with the Amba boys [separatists]... I said, 'Can I look for a lawyer?' They said no." She said authorities held her in inhumane conditions, only allowing her to wash once a week, requiring her to defecate in a bucket, and providing little food. "At times they just brought bread and water... Some days they didn't even bring anything, only water."
Marie, traveling to look for her family in Bamenda in January 2021, said two men in black uniforms assaulted her at the same checkpoint, prior to arresting her, raping her, and detaining her for three days in "a small jail cell" in Santa, a town in the North-West region. She recounted:
"They [security forces at the checkpoint] asked for my ID. I gave them the [movement pass].... [An officer] said, "So you are one of those people who came back here."...[A commander] told the [officer], "Tell her to come here, let the rest…go." ...They started beating me, two people... I'm not sure if they were BIR, army, gendarmes, or police... They said, 'Here's the Ambazonian... destroying the name of the country.' ...They used some whip...on my neck and back... They slapped me in my face... I fell on the ground. They...kicked me... They...pressed their boot on my face and jaw...the pain was too much... They picked me up with my dress and dragged me, pushed me inside a car. ... They abused me sexually...in an uncompleted building [in Santa]...before taking me to lock me up. ...It makes me feel like dying whenever I remember it. ...
"There were bruises and marks on my breast where they had mashed [kicked], and bruises on my hands and blood and bruises behind my neck. My period came automatically because of what they did... I thought maybe it was from the shock of the beating."
Marie said that during her detention, "They gave us food once a day... We could not bathe for three days. ...The fourth day I escaped... I had 7,000 CFA [U.S. $14] in my purse, so I had to give a military guard everything."
Human Rights Watch reviewed photos of Marie, taken at a medical clinic after her escape, depicting her injuries. A lawyer in the North-West region in touch with Marie after the incident, who spoke with Human Rights Watch, as well as an affidavit written by a friend of Marie's in Douala, corroborated Marie's account.
Mercy said that after her arrival on the October 2020 flight, authorities held her in the Yassa facility in Douala for one night, then put her on a bus with six or seven other deportees, including two women, to "take us to our different localities in South-West region." She said military personnel at a checkpoint in South-West region detained her and the others.
"We were asked to present ID document[s]. All we had...was a...[movement pass] that stated that we were deportees. When the military saw that we had been deported from the USA, we were asked to come down [from] the bus... [T]he military...accused us of spreading lies about the Cameroonian government," said Mercy.
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She said officers took her and the others to a military facility nearby, separating them. Mercy said she was detained incommunicado for around 1.5 months, with little food. She described torture including rape and other severe physical abuse:
"I was put in a small room with no ventilation, no light...for some days without food or water... [T]wo military officers...took me to another room... I was asked to sit down on the chair, with my hands and legs tied... [O]ne of them pointed a gun at my head, shouted at me to tell them the truth about what I said about the government. They said my file in which all that I said to the US government was in front of them... They...slapped [me] hard against my face, causing me to fall to the floor and my nose to bleed. They kept kicking me.... They beat me under my legs with a...machete...
"After some days, I was called again for the same interrogation... [M]y clothes were forcibly taken off. I was held down to the floor by two men while one penetrated me. I cried... I was raped by all three men. ...I was called on three different occasions and each time they did almost the same thing to me."
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