Caught between Anglophone Militants and the Army

Ngabi Dora Tue, consumed by grief, was hardly able to stand alone.

The coffin of her husband, Johnson Mabia, was in the midst of a crowd struggling in Limbe in the southwestern region of Cameroon – an area that had seen scenes many times before.

During a work trip, Johnson – an English -speaking official – and five colleagues were imprisoned by armed separatists.

The militants fought – and still – fighting for the independence of the two English -speaking regions of Cameroon in what a predominantly Francophone country is. A conflict almost in the decade that led to thousands of deaths and impeded living in the area.

When he was abducted four years ago, Dora struggled to reach Johnson. When she finally heard of separatist militants, they asked for a ransom of more than $ 55,000 (£ 41,500) to be paid within 24 hours to guarantee his release. Dora then received a phone call from one of the family members of Johnson.

“He said … that I had to take care of the children. That my husband is no longer. I didn’t even know what to do. On Tuesday he was traveling and he was abducted. He was killed on Friday,” says Dora.

The responsible separatists had not only killed but beheaded Johnson and left his body on the road.

The roots of the separatist battle lie in long -term grievances that extend to complete independence in 1961, and the formation of a single Cameroonian State in 1972 from former British and French areas.

Since then, the English -language minority has felt felt in the observed erosion of rights by the central government. Johnson was just an innocent interaction, entangled in an ever -brutal fight for self -determination and the desperate government attempts to eradicate the uprising.

The current wave of violence started almost ten years ago.

At the end of 2016, peaceful protests started against what was seen as the creeping use of the French -speaking legal system in the courts of the region. The French and English -language parts of Cameroon use different judicial systems.

The protests spread quickly and led to a call for the closing of shops and institutions.

The reaction of the security forces was immediately and serious – people were beaten, intimidated and there were mass arrests. The African Union called it “a deadly and disproportionate use of violence”.

The Ministry of Defense of Cameroon did not respond to requests for comments on these or other issues in this article.

Armed groups were set up. And at the end of 2017, when tensions escalated, Anglophone declared independence for what they called the Federal Republic Amazonia.

To date, five million English -speaking Cameroonians have been dragged in the conflict – equal to one fifth of the total population. At least 6,000 people were killed and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

“We woke up with dead bodies on the street in the morning,” says Blaise Eyong, a journalist from Kumba in the English -language southwestern region of Cameroon, who has produced and presented a documentary about the crisis for BBC Africa Eye, and was forced from his hometown with his family in 2019.

“Or you hear that a house has been set on fire. Or you hear that someone has been kidnapped. The body parts of people chopped off. How do you live in a city where you are worried every morning or are your relatives safe?”

A number of national and international attempts have been made to resolve the crisis, including what the government called in 2019 “a major national dialogue”.

Although the conversations have set a special status for the two English -speaking regions of the country that recognized their unique history, little was solved in practical terms.

FELIX AGBOR NKONGHO – A lawyer who was one of the leaders of the protests of 2016 and was later arrested – says that both parties now seem to act with impunity, the moral high ground has disappeared.

“There was a time … where most people thought that if they needed safety, they would go to the separatists,” he says BBC Africa Eye.

“But in the past two years I don’t think a reasonable person would think that the separatists would be the ones who protect them. So everyone should die for us to have independence and I ask the question: who are you going to rule?”

But it is not only the separatists who are accused of abuse.

Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have recorded the brutal response of the security forces to the movement of the English -language independence movement. They have documented the burning of villages and torture, illegal arrests and extrajudicial murders of people in a war that is largely unseen by the outside world.

Examples of brutality sponsored by the state are not difficult to find.

John (not his real name) and a good friend were detected by Cameroonian forces, accused of buying weapons for a separatist group.

John remembers that, after they were locked up, they received a document that was told to sign without getting the chance to read its content. When they refused, torture began.

“That’s when they divorced us in different rooms,” says John. “They tortured (my friend). You could just hear them stroll everywhere. I could feel it on my own body (too). They hit me everywhere. Later they told me he accepted and drew it and they allowed him to go. “

But that was not the truth.

A month after his arrest, another man arrived in the cell of John. He told him that his friend had actually died in the room in which he was held and tortured. Months later John’s case was withdrawn and he was released without leadership.

“I just live in fear because I don’t really know where to start or where it is safe to start or how,” says John.

You can watch the full movie, the country that bleeds, here

Part of the strategy of the separatists to weaken the state and its security forces is to insist on a ban on education that they say is a tool for government propaganda.

A school in Kumba was attacked in October 2020. No one claimed the responsibility for cruelty, but the government blamed separatists. Men armed with machetes and weapons have killed at least seven children.

The incident led international indignation and conviction for a short moment.

“Almost half of the schools in this region are closed,” says journalist Eyong.

“A whole generation of children miss their education. Imagine the impact that this will have for our communities and also for our country.”

As if the violence between the government forces and the various separatist groups was not enough, an extra front was opened in the war. Militant groups in the separatist areas were created to combat Amazonians in an attempt to keep Cameroon United.

A leader of one of these groups, John Ewome (known as Moja Moja), regularly led patrols in the city of Buea in search of separatists until he was arrested in May 2024.

He is also accused of human rights violations, of public humiliation and torture of unarmed citizens who were thought as separatist sympathizers. He denies the accusations. “I have never put a citizen in my hands. Only the Amazonians. And I believe that the gods of this country are with me,” he told the BBC.

In the meantime, the cycle of abductions and murders continues.

Joe (not his real name) was held hostage – just like Johnson – by a separatist group, who wanted to maintain control by fear – and cash in money.

“I walked into the house and found my children and my wife on the floor while the commander was in my kitchen with his gun very close. Everywhere my neighbor was taken, my landlord was taken. So when I saw them, I knew it was my turn,” says Joe.

He was led with 15 other people to the forest, where he witnessed the execution of two of his colleagues prisoners. But he was eventually liberated after the army discovered the camp.

Johnson was not lucky and about two years after his funeral took place, news came that his five colleagues were not abducted with him either. Their bodies had just been found.

More families will now have to try to bring their enormous losses to the less. For Ngabi Dora Tue, sitting with her young child on her lap, the future feels almost overwhelming.

“I have debts that I have to arrange, I don’t even know how to be taken,” she says.

“I thought about selling my body for money. And then I have the shame that would come afterwards, I just have to swallow the difficulty and then push ahead. I was very young to become a widow.”

The BBC has asked for a response from the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF), which claims to be the greatest separatist force.

It replied that there is a multiple of separatist hunters who now work in the English -speaking area.

The ADF said it works within international law and does not attack government workers, schools, journalists or citizens.

Instead, it blamed individuals and road teases that act in themselves that are not members of the ADF for these attacks.

The group also accuses government infiltrators of committing atrocities while they claim to be Ambazonic hunters to turn the locals against the liberation struggle.