Primary school teacher, Anthonia Chia, still missing one month after arrest

Anthonia Chia, teacher at Government Primary School Akono is still missing since she was reportedly arrested by security forces on November 3, 2020. The teacher, who hails from Akeh village in Boyo Division, North West Region, was arrested in the South West Region town of Muyuka alongside her two children.

She had travelled to the South West Region to live with her siblings due to the COVID-19 pandemic but was picked up for reasons yet unknown.
Sources say she was arrested by the Cameroon security forces and is presently in Yaoundé but family members say they do not know her whereabouts.

The arrest of civilians and subsequent incommunicado detention has become a norm in Cameroon’s North West and South West Regions since the regions slumped into conflict in 2016.

This year, English-speaking broadcaster, Samuel Wazizi, was announced to have died in military incommunicado detention after he was arrested in 2019 on charges of collaborating with Separatists fighters, which he had denied.