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- Nine people, including four women and an 18-month-old child, were killed by the army in Cameroon.
- In a rare move, the military has taken the blame and opened an inquiry into the killings.
- Human Rights Watch says the killings were not isolated incidents.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has welcomed an investigation into the killing of nine people by the Cameroonian national army as a positive step towards transparency and accountability.
On 1 June this year in Missong village, North-West region, nine people - including four women and an 18-month-old child - were killed by the army.
However, there are two different versions of the story.
Army spokesperson Colonel Cyrille Serge Atonfack claimed in a press release that a group of "defiant villagers" had confronted soldiers from the 53rd Motorised Infantry Battalion, searching for a missing soldier, and that in a "manifestly disproportionate" and "hasty" response, the soldiers had opened fire, killing nine civilians.
READ | Separatist forces getting away with serious abuses in anglophone Cameroon - Human Rights Watch
In the other version, according to HRW investigations, eyewitnesses said there had been no confrontation from the side of the civilians.
Instead, soldiers had opened fire "randomly", HRW claims.
"They [soldiers] started shooting randomly," a woman who lives in Missong told HRW.
She said:
Killings inquiry
Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Central Africa researcher at HRW said, after the army had openly admitted to wrongdoing, investigations should be carried out impartially that those behind the killing of civilians should be brought to book.
"The admission of responsibility by the army and the announcement of an investigation are crucial steps toward justice for these serious crimes," she said.
"The authorities now need to ensure that the investigation is thorough, impartial and independent, and capable of establishing a clear timeline of events and the identification of all those responsible - including in the chain of command - with an aim toward prosecution."
According to HRW, "the attack in Missong is not an isolated case, but part of a pattern of systematic human rights violations by the Cameroonian security forces in the Anglophone regions since 2016".
In most cases, the government does not acknowledge any wrongdoing, particularly in anglophone Cameroon. Those that call out the army are labelled separatists pushing propaganda to destabilise the country.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
