Seven years after the date the Cameroonian military says journalist Samuel Ajiekah Abuwe, popularly known as Samuel Wazizi, died in its custody, his family is still waiting for his body and for definitive answers about what happened to him.
Wazizi, a broadcast journalist and cameraman with Buea-based Chillen Music Television (CMTV), was known for reporting critically on the government’s handling of the Anglophone crisis. According to his family, lawyer and colleagues, he was arrested in Buea, Southwest Region, on August 2, 2019, over accusations that he had links to separatist fighters, allegations he denied. The military later gave a different account, saying he had been arrested on August 3 in Ekona.
On August 7, 2019, Wazizi was transferred from police custody to the 21st Motorised Infantry Battalion in Buea. From that point, his family, colleagues and lawyers lost contact with him and received no official information about his whereabouts.
His lawyer, Edward Ewule, filed a habeas corpus application before the Buea High Court on August 13, seeking to compel authorities to produce Wazizi before the court and establish the legal basis for his continued detention. The case would continue through the courts even though, according to the military’s account released months later, Wazizi was already dead.
The military says Wazizi died on August 17, 2019, at a military hospital in Yaoundé from what it described as “severe sepsis.” It denied that he had been tortured or subjected to physical mistreatment. Yet neither his lawyers nor members of his family were officially informed of his death at the time, according to accounts they later gave to press-freedom organisations.
His death was confirmed nearly 10 months later
For nearly 10 months after the date authorities say Wazizi died, his family and lawyers continued searching for him.
The first habeas corpus application was dismissed on technical grounds on November 5, 2019. A second application followed, but the proceedings were repeatedly adjourned. Throughout that period, the authorities did not publicly disclose that Wazizi had died.
It was only on June 2, 2020, that Equinoxe TV reported that Wazizi had died in custody at a military hospital in Yaoundé, citing an unnamed military source. The following day, Denis Nkwebo, then president of the Cameroon Journalists’ Trade Union, also reported his death, saying his information came from a military source.
On June 4, Southwest Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai told journalists seeking answers that Wazizi had been in good health when he left Buea and that only the central government could explain what had subsequently happened to him.
A day later, on June 5, 2020, the military officially confirmed that Wazizi had died on August 17, 2019. It maintained that severe sepsis caused his death, denied allegations of torture and claimed his family had been informed. The statement also said his body was being kept at the military mortuary in Ekounou, Yaoundé.
Wazizi’s relatives strongly disputed that account. His sister-in-law, Metete Joan Njang, and elder brother, Harry Abuwe, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that the family first learned of his death through the Equinoxe TV report, not from the Cameroonian authorities.
That same day, then French Ambassador to Cameroon Christophe Guilhou said he had raised Wazizi’s death with President Paul Biya and that the President had promised an investigation.
Calls for an independent investigation
On June 9, 2020, a judge dismissed Wazizi’s second habeas corpus application on the grounds that he was no longer within the jurisdiction of the Buea High Court when the application was filed. His lawyers appealed and said they would seek a commission of inquiry.
Press-freedom and human rights organisations subsequently intensified calls for an independent investigation into Wazizi’s detention and death.
Reporters Without Borders, RSF, said it had seen photographs of Wazizi taken in Yaoundé on August 13, 2019, showing multiple injuries on different parts of his body. RSF said the injuries raised serious concerns that Wazizi may have been tortured in custody. No independent autopsy has been conducted to establish the cause or circumstances of those injuries.
RSF and ACAT-France later reported that Cameroon’s then National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms had told them an investigation was conducted by military intelligence and its findings submitted to President Biya in October 2020. However, the findings were never made public, leaving unanswered questions over what exactly was investigated, by whom and with what conclusions.
Media Defence said in January 2026 that no transparent and independent investigation meeting international human rights standards had been carried out and that no autopsy had been conducted.
Seven years on, Wazizi’s family still has no body
One of the most disturbing unresolved aspects of the Samuel Wazizi case is the fate of his remains.
The military said in June 2020 that Wazizi’s body was at the military mortuary in Ekounou. Yet the body was never handed over to his family.
By October 2025, more than six years after the military’s stated date of death, Wazizi’s remains had still not been released. CPJ reported that the government had also refused to allow an independent forensic pathologist to carry out an autopsy.
Media Defence said in January 2026 that Wazizi’s family had repeatedly been denied access to his remains and that their current whereabouts were unknown. It also said an attempt by his lawyers to arrange an independent autopsy in 2021 failed after the forensic expert involved was unable to enter Cameroon.
The absence of his body has therefore prevented his relatives not only from conducting an independent examination that might provide answers about how he died, but also from burying him seven years after his death.
In November 2024, a Cameroonian Justice Ministry representative told the United Nations Committee Against Torture that Wazizi’s case had been closed and the file classified, according to reporting subsequently recorded by CPJ and Media Defence.
But declaring a file closed has not answered the central questions that have followed the case since 2019: What happened to Wazizi between his transfer into military custody on August 7 and his reported death 10 days later? What caused the injuries seen in photographs obtained by RSF? Was an investigation actually conducted, and if so, what did it establish? Why were his relatives and lawyers not told of his death for nearly 10 months? And seven years later, why has his body still not been returned to his family?
Samuel Wazizi case reaches the African Commission
With attempts to obtain redress within Cameroon producing no definitive resolution, the case has moved to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Media Defence filed a complaint against Cameroon before the Commission in August 2024 and submitted detailed arguments on admissibility and the merits of the case in June 2025. The organisation made the international legal action public in a January 7, 2026 statement.
The complaint challenges the circumstances of Wazizi’s arrest, his incommunicado detention and death in custody, as well as the state’s failure to conduct what Media Defence argues should have been an effective and independent investigation. It alleges violations of rights protected under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, including the rights to life, liberty and security, as well as the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Seven years of unanswered questions
August 17, 2026, marks exactly seven years since the date on which the Cameroonian military says Samuel Wazizi died in custody.
Seven years later, his family still has no body to bury. There has been no independent autopsy establishing his cause of death, and no publicly available independent investigation has resolved the circumstances surrounding his detention and death.
The military maintains that Wazizi died from severe sepsis and was not tortured. His family disputes key parts of the official account, including the assertion that relatives were informed of his death, while press-freedom organisations continue to question the injuries seen on his body and the lack of an independent investigation.
For Wazizi’s family, the passage of seven years has therefore not closed the case. Instead, the continued absence of his body and the unanswered questions surrounding his final days have turned his death into an enduring test of accountability, access to justice and press freedom in Cameroon.