A database has been launched to collect, store and document killings and atrocities carried out in the restive Anglophone regions of Cameroon.
Set up by the University of Toronto, Canada, the database has as aim “to counter the culture of impunity that has pervaded this crisis since 2016”.
The Anglophone crisis which escalated in the country’s North West and South West region in 2016 morphed into an armed conflict few months after government soldiers shot protesters with live bullets.
In a news release, the Toronto University explains that “the database will aggregate, verify, secure and publish information about atrocities or crimes against humanity commited by Cameroonian military and non armed state groups. It is non partisan and apolitical”.
The information gotten through the database it adds will subsequently be published online to “serve as a deterrence from further violence and gross impunity”.
Consequently, the University notes that persons and organisations with ” photos, videos, documents or other proof of atrocities from October 2016 to present from Cameroon’s Anglophone North West and South West region can anonymously and securely upload them to the database”.
For the protection of its sources it adds, “no identifying information will be collected from people who upload”.
The database is expected to be the first of its kind regarding the Anglophone Crisis, and is expected to go a long way to identifying cases of rights violations and atrocities in the Anglophone regions.
Click link below for to inform the Toronto University about cases of right violations in the North West and/or South West regions of Cameroon here
https://research.rotman.utoronto.ca/Cameroon/