The People’s Voice (PV): Anglophone Cameroonian Recounts Unimaginable Tortures He Received From Yaoundé Policemen

On today’s edition of the People’s Voice, an Anglophone Cameroonian resident in Yaoundé recounts to us the hellish injustice he was subjected by the police in Yaounde.

Unjustly accused and arrested, this Anglophone Cameroonian was roughly tortured and locked up in a tiny cell with hardened criminals as he went to do a certificate of loss document for his stolen Identity Card. Read the ordeal below:

“Do receive my warmest greetings. Permit me to express an ill-treatment meted on me by the police which has left me very traumatized since then.

I left the house on Tuesday 21 December 2021 to go and establish my identity card (that was stolen with my other valuables) just return home at midnight bleeding after being brutalized, tortured, threatened, accused and detained by some brutal police men.

It was at the “Commissariat Central” opposite the MTN office at Calafatas, Yaounde on December 21, 2021 at about 1PM.

I left home in the morning of the aforementioned date to go and establish my ID card at the said commissariat central because I thought it will be easier making it there since it is where I made the stolen one though for a year and many months it has never come out. I arrived there safely, certified all the required documents demanded, paid for my ID card then deposited the documents where I was supposed to and we were asked to wait outside the Police Station where they will be calling us in for the identification process.

I stood there for several hours, between 9am to 1pm. While standing out there, I was occupying myself by reading some messages in my tablet. At a particular time, a fight broke out away from where I was standing and it seemed that police officers were involved. Without interested in whatsoever was happening, I was concentrated on my tablet under the scorching sun and suddenly a “police officer” seized my tablet so abruptly while the other one brutally held me by the neck and that is where the brutality and barbaric actions on me started.

As they dragged me with them, they did not allow me to offer a word. some Policemen suddenly pounced on me with some kicking me everywhere on my body, others hitting me on the head and other parts of the body with their truncheons while some were slapping and punching me mercilessly. During this horrible moment of torture (one that I have never experienced in my life), I got all forms of accusations as the uniform men added up inflicting more pains on me. Some of them falsely accused me of being the one who usually take videos of uniform men whenever they are fighting and send to the social media.

Some on their part said that I took a video of what occurred there (something I knew not nor ever had interest in) while others said that I hit the car of one of their boss and others were like I was in the car with the person who did so (somebody I have never seen up till today).


Perplexed, bleeding and battling with pains already unbearable, I started screaming as I saw not only my rights as a human violated but God’s sacred gift of life to me threatened. As I did scream in English language for help from the Almighty, another uniform guy descended on me again with a greater degree of torture using both his baton and hands then saying “and he is not even a Cameroonian but an Ambazonian” (in French).

After which I was thrown behind one counter. I only discovered myself when one lady working in the police post was offering me tissue to clean off blood from the floor and from my body too. Blood was oozing out of my ears (so strange to me), nostrils, mouth, head, neck with bruises on my hands, legs and knees. My head was bubbling inside as if a plinian type of eruption wanted to explode and release gassy and viscous magma from within. I was feeling as though I was carrying mount Fako while my chest could not permit me to breath easily after being trampled upon. My trachea and the bronchi appeared to have been tampered with.

I was feared to have had my lungs dislodged by the vandalism. I had the feelings of a left atrium and ventricles stocked onto the right ones. Even standing up was a problem because of the feebleness in my smashed bones. My life was as if it will soon end.
Life threatening statements.

During the moment where I was being brutalized, I received all sorts of threatening phrases from the police squad like, “we will send you to prison and you shall never come out, we will deform you, we will eliminate you” amongst others. This makes my life to be unsecured as I speak and if anything happen to me, those police officers should be held accountable.
My detention.

I was then sent to the cell where I met some inmates. My encounter there was still an uncomfortable one. I met strange faces, a dirty and smelling cell. Where am I? I asked myself. Probably in a different world tortured both psychologically and physically, weakened and deprived of my freedom. Is death not better?? I pondered further but still as such interrogations were lingering via my mind, the door was closed firmly affirming my detention. I was welcomed by one of the inmate as the newest inmate. He introduced me to their “chief” who asked me to pay for my space, give a due of which not I will be tortured mercilessly and I will not sit but remain standing throughout. I was dumbfounded because the money I had with me and some other valuables got missing when I was being brutalized.

I don’t know how but the police officers surely. As I sent my hands into my pockets, I found only the broken pieces of my cousin’s residence permit that he gave me to go and rectify some issues with it in the embassy but police brutality destroyed. I negotiated with the inmates and had my own nasty space attributed in the dungeon. I was questioned by the leader of the inmates, their rules given to me and horrible things proposed to me. The cell was so full with different categories of people: teenagers, youths, the old and even the blind too. Surprisingly was a woman in the same cell, an old blind father who could barely walk. Some of them explained their ordeals to me which further made me to ponder whether humanity has lost its value and whether some human beings are really being human.

The song by Jim Reeves now crossed my mind that “this world is not my home” and I started comforting myself with it while trying to comprehend to no avail why the Holy Scriptures in Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV) says “the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can understand it?”. Isaiah 41:10&11 consoled me while I hoped on the Lord for my liberation.
Friends indeed.

I struggled and reached out to my friends who responded to my urgent need for liberty and came to my rescue together with a barrister too (names withheld). For one of my friend, he closed his company for my sake that afternoon, for the other ; he postponed his appointment meanwhile the other left the sick bed and rushed with the wife and daughter to see for themselves what could be done while the barrister showed up immediately. I am immensely grateful to you guys. I shed tears when I saw my friends and they looked at me sympathetically with my shirt thorn apart and blood on my face and chest. It was a moment of mix feelings. They were so empathetic.

I was frightened and threatened from time to time. My tablet was unlocked, exploited in order to find anything that could implicate me and behold nothing was found. I stayed in detention shivering, combating depression, managing to breathe until about 9:50PM when I was released without even a statement of mine taken. Places were relatively calm as many had gone home already. Voices of quarreling inmates could be gotten so clearly. Two of my friends were still there enduring all the odds as they vowed not to leave without me.

When released, some of the uniform guys got angry that I will not continue to suffer there. They openly express their wish of seeing me suffer for reasons I know not. This was just a further affirmation of the wickedness of the human heart. I smiled while my friend nodded his head in consternation. I asked whether my statements won’t be taken but received no respond. We then took a taxi and left. I only arrived home when it was almost midnight since I had to look for medication and a means that the wounded parts of my body be cleaned. I reached home completely exhausted.

As I write, it has been some days whereby I am in deep affliction inflicted on me by the police of “Cameroun” for reasons I know not. Despite the fact that torture is a crime and even the penal code of the country criminalizes the use of torture as the law provides that “under no circumstances shall any person be subjected to torture, to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” they decided to harm me via such barbarism. It was obnoxious and unsavory. I am in need of finances for proper medical examination as I pass sleepless nights battling with extreme pains on my head, neck, chest and my left hand.

The bruises are healing so fast but internally, I have the impression that some tissues were damaged due to the type of pains I feel. Only a scanning can really say what’s really wrong but what will I do as I was emptied by these guys. I am discombobulated.

I keep interrogating myself if human life has lost its value and it is no longer sacred. Was it because I am an Anglophone? (Southern Cameroonian) Is the money we pay as taxes and the one from our resources used to pay these guys to brutalize and torture us? Is torture not a crime in “La Republique du Cameroun”? Is this how they were cultured to be?? Have they become superior just by wearing those uniforms? Is the country lawless? Are we not all equal? Do some people think they are demi-gods? Do they think they are immortal? Do people gain satisfaction in seeing others suffer? Is using your phone beside uniform men now a crime??Why the torture? Why this cruelty? Why the inhuman treatment? Why this injustice? Why the violation of fundamental human rights??

The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness and verily, evil people don’t just hurt others but they take pride in the pains they cause and then try to blame their victims. Do remember that God bears with the wicked but not forever.

A day is coming where they shall all account for their deeds. I firmly agree with Albert Einstein who once said that “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything”. Thanks for your attention. May the Almighty reward you abundantly Mimi Mefo Info”

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