Cameroon: After Buea, Bamenda DDR ex-fighters protest, demand better reintegration conditions

Former separatist fighters in Cameroon’s North West Region have taken to the streets to voice their anger over the conditions at Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration, DDR Centre.

The ex-fighters say the government has failed to keep promises made for them to drop arms and leave the bushes from where they have been fighting for four years today.

Demands listed by the ex-fighters include the lack of allowances for them as well as the need for legalized disarmament cards and a defined reintegration period.

“On the 30th of November 2018, the president of Cameroon put place the measure to bring peace … by creating the DDR Centre for everlasting peace in our nation but the authorities put in place to carried out the disarmament project have not been serious…,” they stated in a release.


The authorities, the ex-fighters said, “… have taken the centre for political events by putting the ex-combatants in hardship”.

They further listed a series of demands including “… the duration in the center to be re-integrated to the society, legalized disarmament card equivalent to ID card”.

“We the ex-combatants in the DDR Centre are working hard with uniformed officers to bring other friends from the bush” they added.

Today’s protest follows that of their counterparts in the South West region days back over similar concerns.

After the protest by the Buea DDR Centre ex-fighters, Bamenda DDR authorities had claimed the ex-fighters in their centre had no issues, and we’re living happily.

The recent protests come to question the government’s intention to bring the raging war to an end.