Southern Cameroons Post - Southern Cameroons

The Voice of the People

The Two Cameroons: A Decade of Genocide in Plain Sight

By Gamua Boma

The Two Cameroons: A Decade of Genocide in Plain Sight

By Gamua Boma

BAMENDA— For nearly a decade, the morning mist in the rolling hills of the English-Speaking territory known as Southern Cameroons has been broken not by birdsong, but by gunfire. What began in late 2016 as a strike by lawyers in powdered wigs and teachers with chalkboards has metastasized into one of Africa’s deadliest and most neglected conflicts—a slow-motion catastrophe unfolding in the shadows of global indifference.

As of December 2025, this so-called “Anglophone Crisis” has left more than 65,000 people dead—a toll human rights advocates and scholars describe as genocide in plain sight—and displaced over one million others. The war, which pits English-speaking separatists fighting for the restoration of the independence of Southern Cameroons (aka Ambazonia) against the Francophone-majority government of the Republic of Cameroon ( La Republique du Cameroun), has shattered a nation once praised as a pillar of stability in Central Africa.

The Spark: 2016

The tinder was lit in October 2016. English-Speaking lawyers and teachers, representing a distinct common-law and Anglo-Saxon educational heritage, launched peaceful protests against what they termed the aggressive “Francophonization” of their institutions. They accused the government of President Paul Biya - in power for over four decades - of systemic subjugation and marginalization of the English-speaking minority, which constitutes roughly 20% of the population.

The regime’s response was brutal and immediate. Security forces fired live ammunition into crowds. A government-ordered internet blackout severed the regions from the world for months. By late 2017, moderate calls for a federal system were overtaken by demands for outright independence. On October 1, 2017, Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe proclaimed the restoration of the “Federal Republic of Ambazonia.”

An Ongoing Genocidal War

What followed was a descent into brutal insurgency. Ambazonian fighters, often loosely organized, ambushed military outposts. The Cameroonian army retaliated with scorched-earth tactics, accused by groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of burning villages, conducting extrajudicial killings, and using torture as a tool of counter-insurgency.

Civilians are trapped in a deadly vice. Peaceful protests through “Ghost town” lockdowns and school boycotts were introduced, while Cameroonian forces treat entire communities as complicit. Hospitals are targeted, schools shuttered, and farming crippled, pushing regions toward man-made famine.

The Case of the "Nera 10"

The conflict’s political core was personified by the “Nera 10.” In January 2018, former President Ayuk Tabe and nine other leaders were abducted from a hotel in Abuja, Nigeria, and forcibly renditioned to Cameroon—an act condemned as a flagrant violation of the international refugee principle of non-refoulement.

Their detention has become a litmus test for justice, met with successive legal rebukes:

2019, Nigerian Federal High Court: Ruled the arrest and deportation illegal and unconstitutional, ordering Nigeria to repatriate the men and pay damages—an order never fulfilled.
2022, UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Declared their detention arbitrary, citing violations of the right to fair trial and refugee rights, and called for immediate release and compensation.

As of December 18, 2025, they remain in Yaoundé’s Principal Prison. Their latest appeal hearing was adjourned to January 2026, a delay emblematic of a justice system weaponized for political detention.

The Schism: An Exile Government Divides

With the Nera 10 imprisoned, the diaspora-based struggle faced a leadership crisis. In early 2018, Dr. Samuel Ikome Sako, a Maryland-based pastor and entrepreneur, was elevated to “Acting President” to sustain diplomatic and operational efforts. What began as a stopgap measure solidified into a permanent, contentious transition. Sako was later confirmed as President of the exiled Government of Southern Cameroons - Ambazonia, a move that is being challenged by some minority voices of the liberation movement. Most Ambazonians argued that the revolution could not be led from a Yaoundé cellblock by Ayuk Tabe, thus throwing their overwhelming support to the Sako leadership.

Hope Despite a Bleak Outlook

The international response has been a study in neglect. Distracted by wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Sahel, global powers have offered little beyond occasional expressions of “concern.” Peace initiatives, including Swiss-led mediation, have stalled, lacking genuine political will from Yaoundé or sufficient leverage from international stakeholders.

On the ground, the human cost accrues daily. In Bamenda and Buea, life is a precarious calculus of navigating military checkpoints, avoiding kidnapping gangs, and surviving in an economy strangled by war.

“The regime brands us as enemies of the state, and the separatists suspect us as spies,” a local journalist in Bamenda confided, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal. “We are narrators of a tragedy that no one with the power to stop it seems to be watching. In the middle, our people are not just waiting for peace. They are enduring an erasure of their future, their history, and their very presence on this land. The world has looked away for ten years. Our valleys are filled with ghosts, and the silence from beyond our borders is a verdict all its own.”

This is not merely a forgotten conflict. It is an existential war for the people of Southern Cameroons. It is an active, witnessed annihilation. A genocide in plain sight.

A decade on, the hills still echo with gunfire, and the world has yet to truly listen.