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An anonymous woman has launched a distress call to Ambazonian leaders both on ground zero and in the Diaspora to look into the daily harassments suffered by Anglophone Cameroonians who own valid National ID Cards and come across them.
The modus operandi on such instances, according to this lady, is that these fighters term anyone they find with a National ID card as blackleg and therefore result in abusing them.
The downside of this, she explains, is that without this National ID card, Anglophones equally fall into major trouble with the military. As such, innocent civilians are caught up between two extremes.
In her testimony, this anonymous lady narrates that she was plunged into this dilemma which she just luckily maneuvered out of.
“I was traveling to Bamenda and when we got a place between Kumbo and Jakiri, we met a group of ground zero fighters who were extremely well-armed. I don’t know what faction they belonged to. They came to us to carry out control. What I had with me was an ID card receipt which I had carried for the past 3 years. I recently renewed it. So when I showed it to them one of them asked me to come down, that I was a blackleg. So I came down and tried to explain to them the situation. I told them if I didn’t have that ID card, I would be in trouble with the police.
“They won’t let me travel and equally if I don’t have this ID card, you withholding me here will call me a spy. Moreover, you guys have got no identification papers through which we can identify ourselves when traveling. If you have one you tell me and I’ll produce them,” she told him.
Our informant explained to us that her pleadings all fell on deaf ears as the armed men insisted that she was a blackleg. She luckily got bailed by the driver of the vehicle. The driver mediated on her behalf successfully, after which she was asked by these fighters to pay a penalty of 1,000FCFA which she did and set free.
However, the victim is crying out to the Ambazonian Leadership both in Cameroon and Abroad as well as the state to look into the issue of Identification in the Anglophone regions to spare innocent civilians from these daily harassments.
“It is really becoming a burden for us to bear. If you extend your ID card, you get into trouble with the Ambazonians, if you don’t, then you fall into trouble with the military. Finally, what do they want us to do? Please I just wish to plead that these boys on ground zero be told that they don’t have Independence yet and so don’t have any official documents with which to Identify their own people. Let them at least let us have what we have and move freely. They are making life unbearable for innocent civilians,” she pleaded.
