Nembo Ketchu is a struggling motorbike delivery driver living in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s embattled English-speaking North West region. For over a decade, Ketchu has depended wholly on this informal job to provide for his young family. But a recent order banning the night-time movement of motorbikes in his region has threatened his livelihood and that of thousands of others.
In late May, local authorities in Cameroon’s Mezam district imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on motorbikes. It was an attempt to curb rising insecurity fueled by a protracted civil war in which motorbike drivers became targets. Economic activity has since taken a nosedive.
“At first, I would get up at 5 am to transport passengers, take a break at 1 pm, then resume at 3 pm. By the time I stop work at 10, I must have saved at least FCFA 8,000 [$13.28],” said the 34-year-old father of two. “But now, I can barely save half of that amount. This can hardly meet all the needs of my family.”
This latest economic hardship adds to the list of losses Ketchu has suffered due to the eight-year conflict in Cameroon. He’s still struggling to repay the loan he used to purchase his bike after armed men seized his first motorbike.
A colonial past leads to violence
Violence has torn through Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, in the northwest and southwest of the country, since 2016. The violence erupted after the government imposed French-speaking teachers and lawyers on Anglophone schools and courts for years. Now, Anglophone militants are fighting Cameroon’s armed forces for their own breakaway country, which they named Ambazonia.
The present-day Republic of Cameroon emerged from a complex colonial history that created the conditions for the current conflict. Present day Cameroon was annexed by the Germans in 1884. The territory was later divided and ruled as separate entities by the French and the British after the German defeat in World War I.
When the country gained independence in the early 1960s, the British and French-controlled territories reunited and formed a federal state. Around 80 percent of Cameroon is French-speaking, while around 20 percent of the population speaks English.
The country’s linguistic diversity didn’t immediately cause conflicts. However, the government dissolved the federal structure that guaranteed the rights of the minority anglophone population in 1972 following a controversial referendum.
In the conflict that erupted eight years ago, more than 6,000 people died. At least 1.1 million others became internally displaced, and around 70,000 more fled to neighboring Nigeria. At least 2.5 million people are dangerously short of food.
Dr. Simon Munzu is the retired chairman of the Coalition of Cameroon Federalist Groups and Activists (CCFGA) and a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General. He says the ongoing conflict stems from the Cameroonian government’s desire to “dominate, marginalize, assimilate, and subjugate” the English-speaking territory and population.
“Cameroon, since 1961, has been a country with two colonial heritages: English and French. Not only with respect to its two official languages but also in all spheres of public governance,” Munzu said. “The architects of reunification acknowledged this reality.”
A vicious cycle of violence
In response to the May administrative decision restricting the movement of motorbikes, Anglophone rebels ordered cab drivers in the region to change the color of their vehicles from yellow to white and blue—a symbol of the flag of their secessionist revolt.
Rebels burned some drivers’ vehicles because they failed to comply with the order. Clashes between the Cameroon soldiers and Anglophone separatists now occur on a near-daily basis. Both have repeatedly been accused of engaging in village raids, massacres, unlawful killings, looting, arbitrary arrests, the use of torture, sexual violence, and arson attacks.
Survivors claimed a heavily-armed group of Anglophone rebels broke into a village in the South West region in the early hours of November 6. They killed at least 30 unarmed civilians. That gruesome attack was similar to another act of violence that Anglophone separatists allegedly perpetrated in June 2022, when at least 32 civilians were killed and many more wounded.
One community allegedly hired separatist fighters to settle scores with another over a land dispute. Other gruesome killings have been recorded before these periods. One example was the massacre of school children in the South West region in 2020 and 2021. Both the Cameroon military and the leaders of the secessionist movements accused each other of being responsible for the attacks. Government soldiers also killed 21 villagers on February 14, 2020.
A military stalemate and civilian suffering
Today, the conflict in Cameroon is in a deadly stalemate. Each of the belligerents believes it can defeat the other in battle. Separatists want to prove that they are in control of the English-speaking territory that they call their homeland.
Their struggle has disrupted livelihoods and crippled the social, economic, and cultural activities of most of the population. However, it has fallen short of achieving its primary objective of gaining independence for the country’s English-speaking population.
Continued violence constantly exposes civilians in the Anglophone regions – including French-speaking Cameroonians – to the risk of atrocities.
Clarisse (a pseudonym to protect her safety) is a 19-year-old French-speaking Cameroonian studying at the University of Bamenda in the English-speaking North West. She said she must “constantly stay indoors” for fear of the unknown.
“It is very risky living in this kind of environment,” she said. “Silence is the best way, especially if you are a Francophone. You have to just protect yourself and stay quiet. Just be simple to people.”
Clarisse says she’s still “haunted” by the threats she received from a fellow student. He had spoken rudely to a lecturer in a classroom group chat, and Clarisse called him out. But after she learned that the student had links to separatists, she decided to stay quiet.
“Since that incident, I went back into my shell,” she said. “I no longer really feel at ease in class. I feel insecure.”
Fleeing to safety abroad
In the face of the worsening security situation in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced in October that the U.S. would extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the central African country for 18 months. That means Cameroonians in the United States can remain at least until June 7, 2025, because their home country has been deemed too dangerous.
The move came in response to a petition from 30 U.S. lawmakers. They called on the Biden administration to renew TPS for Cameroon to protect the more than 20,000 Cameroonians estimated to be living in the United States.
The organization Human Rights Watch also called attention to the fact that the United States government had approved the return of 27 Cameroonian asylum seekers who later experienced severe harm in Cameroon after their deportation. Even before that case occurred, the rights group had repeatedly claimed that Cameroonian authorities were subjecting returned deportees and members of their families to serious human rights violations, including rape, torture, other physical abuse, arbitrary arrest and detention, inhuman and degrading treatment in detention, extortion, and threats.
Failed peacebuilding
In the heat of the conflict, the government of Cameroon launched some initiatives aimed at ending the fighting. For a month in 2019, the warring parties participated in negotiations known as the Major National Dialogue. But those negotiations, which didn’t involve critical leaders of the Anglophone revolt, eventually fell apart.
Then, in September 2022, Cameroonian President Paul Biya halted a Swiss-led peace dialogue.
In another effort toward ending the conflict, Canada led secret “pre-talks” to assist the two sides to initiate a formal dialogue. Anglophone leaders issued a joint statement affirming their commitment to participate in negotiations with Canada’s facilitation. But three days later, Cameroon’s government brushed aside Canada’s efforts, denying that it had asked a foreign party to resolve the conflict.
“All those measures have failed because the government is acting in bad faith,” says Munzu, the former UN Assistant Secretary-General. “It refuses to acknowledge the exact nature of the Anglophone problem. It, therefore, refuses to adopt real solutions that could resolve the problem and end the crisis. The measures it has taken so far are purely cosmetic.”
A proposal for compromise
To end the conflict, Munzu suggests that the government of Cameroon acknowledge that two Cameroons – the English-speaking and the French-speaking – came together in 1961 to form a “union of equals.”
The government must also “stop the pursuit of its program of assimilation and subjugation of the English-speaking territory and its population,” he said.
Meanwhile, the separatists should acknowledge that Southern Cameroonians voted to gain independence in 1961 by joining the Republic of Cameroon. That forged the two into one sovereign and independent country. He argues they should drop their ambitions of forming an independent country.
“The Cameroonian people should [then] hold a national conference to establish and implement a constitutional framework for the new governance of their country that meets their aspirations across the ten regions,” Munzu said.
As the conflict drags on and the international community remains silent, civilians like Ketchu, caught between the warring parties, continue counting their losses while hoping for a miracle.
About the author
Nalova Akua is a Cameroonian multimedia journalist covering conflict, human rights, health, and the environment.
