A video has emerged online featuring Belgium-based Sama Thomas Achoa, the self-styled Ambazonia separatist leader of the Batubu Kwifor armed group localised in Mankon, North West Cameroon. In the video, Achoa is urging Ambazonia fighters to target pregnant women as a means to attract international attention to the ongoing conflict.
In addition to advocating for violence against pregnant women, Achoa also calls for the killing of Francophone civilians residing in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions. He believes that targeting these individuals will draw global concern to the ongoing armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions.
“When you are engaged in combat, disregard any notion of international conventions that may hold you accountable in the future,” he urges his fighters. “If it means eliminating citizens of La Republic and even pregnant women, let it be in the millions; eliminate them.”
Achoa asserts that such actions will prompt the international community to deploy soldiers rather than diplomats, thereby establishing a buffer zone between French and English Cameroon. “Even if it means massacring tens of thousands in a single day, do it. That’s what will attract international attention and action,” he reiterates.
He urges fighters not to fear international conventions and encourages them to take actions that will secure their freedom once and for all. “Southern Cameroonians never agreed to those conventions. They hold no relevance to Southern Cameroonians,” he adds.
It is noteworthy that Achoa is spreading these directives while residing in Belgium, a European country. It would be expected that he has a firm awareness of international conflict regulations, which prohibit the targeting of non-combatants, but he persists in his calls for violence against civilians.
Apart from advocating for violence against civilians, Achoa has also targeted journalists covering the conflict in the North West and South West regions. He recently issued threats against the Cameroon News Agency, vowing to blacklist them. He issued similar threats towards MMI, in an attempt to control media reporting on the conflict. The CEOs of MMI and CNA have condemned these threats against media professionals while emphasising that media outlets will continue to document atrocities committed.
The Cameroon Anglophone crisis, which erupted into an armed conflict in 2017, has seen both sides commit grave human rights abuses, including the killing of women and children, burning individuals alive, extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture.
While MMI has been unable to date the video, it comes up at a time when civilians and journalists are facing increasingly attacks in the ongoing conflict.
As the conflict persists, the United Nations reports a death toll exceeding 6,000, with over a million people internally and externally displaced.
