Shanda Tonme, a university professor, mediator, and president of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and Discrimination, has expressed deep concern over the killing of defense and security forces in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, where a separatist conflict has persisted for over eight years.
In a condolence message addressed to the Delegate General for National Security, following the recent killing of a senior police officer, Tonme called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Meba Kevin, a senior police officer, was killed recently in Bui, North West Region by armed separatist Ambazonia fighters. The President Paul Biya government in Yaounde, capital city of the country has not released figures of the number of soldiers killed in the armed conflict which started in 2016. A Human Rights Watch reports show that more and more people have died in the restive Anglophone regions.
Reacting to increasing violence in the North West Regions, one of the restive parts of the country, Shanda Tonme expressed alarm over the continuous loss of life in the Anglophone regions. “To believe for a single moment that true patriots of our country sleep, eat, live, and go about their business peacefully is unthinkable,” he said. “So unbearable are the deaths and the terrible news that overwhelm us every day from the two regions plunged into civil war,” the university professor said.
Shanda noted that the impct of these tragedies on families who have lost loved ones and breadwinners abound. “Once again, a young member of our defense and security forces, with a family, friends, plans, dreams—whose destiny had barely begun—has been killed in an ambush,” he said.
Since the escalation of the Anglophone crisis into armed conflict, at least 6,000 people, including over 1,000 security personnel, are estimated to have been killed, according to human rights reports.
Shanda Tonme also expressed sorrow and questioned the path forward: “How far will we go with this situation?”
He called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, stressing the need for a return to normalcy. “It is time for a definitive and peaceful solution to be thought of, developed, negotiated, and enacted,” he urged. He concluded by noting, “Time teaches us that we must act on evil and not accompany and contemplate evil.”
