Calls For Justice Over Killings by Soldiers in Cameroon

Systematic and widespread attacks by armed separatist groups on students, teachers, and schools in Cameroon's Anglophone regions has been going on since 2017  and have had a devastating impact on children's right to education.

The crisis in these regions began in late 2016, when Cameroonian security forces used excessive force against peaceful demonstrators led by teachers and lawyers protesting the perceived marginalization of the country's minority Anglophone education and legal systems and their assimilation into the Francophone systems. Armed separatist groups, seeking independence for the two English-speaking regions have since emerged and grown, and education soon became a primary battleground.

In December 2021 soldiers went on a rampage killing, beating people and burning their homes showing "disregard for human life" during their recent operations in the North-West region. Human Rights Watch has called on the credible and independent investigation of the killings of civilians, including children; and those responsible to be held to account.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has joined 26 other civil society organizations in calling on President Paul Biya to release all those arbitrarily detained in Cameroon for acts of free expression, including at least four journalists. The organizations also urged Biya to reform the laws currently used to criminalise protest and public assembly, including the country's controversial anti-terror law that is used to silence critics and suppress dissent, as documented in a 2017 special report by CPJ.