“Armed separatists in Cameroon have also committed serious abuses, including attacks on schools, killings, kidnappings, and extortion. Human Rights Watch confirmed three separate incidents since August 2018 in which separatist fighters injured seven civilians and dozens more cases of apparently unlawful attacks on agricultural workers on banana plantations near Tiko, South West region. In January 2019, armed separatists severely beat an ethnic Fulani man with sticks and machetes in Momo Division, North-West region,” Human Rights Watch says in a report dated May 6, 2019.

Human Rights Watch has thus called on the leadership of separatists fighting for the independence of a country they call Ambazonia to stop their fighters from attacking civilians.

“Separatist leaders should issue clear orders to stop fighters from attacking civilians and mistreating anyone in their custody,” Human Rights Watch said.

The rights group also rattled the government and called for an end to violence, torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

Cameroonian authorities should immediately stop the use of torture and other ill-treatment at the SED and other detention facilities, Human Rights Watch said. They should end incommunicado detention and ensure that all detainees have access to their lawyer and family members and receive adequate medical care.

“Cameroonian authorities have tortured and held incommunicado detainees at a detention facility in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital. Gendarmes and other security forces at the State Defense Secretariat (Secrétariat d’Etat à la défense, SED) have severely beaten and used near-drowning to extract confessions from detainees suspected of ties to armed separatist groups,” Human Rights Watch says in a report dated May 6, 2019.

They call on the United Nations to take concrete steps to resolve the crisis in Cameroon’s North West and south West regions. “The United Nations Security Council should put the situation in Cameroon on its agenda, condemn torture and incommunicado detention, and call for the government to end these practices,” Human Rights Watch said.

“Over the past year the security forces in Cameroon have used torture without fear of repercussion,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The UN Security Council should send a clear message that ending torture in detention is critical to addressing the crisis in the Anglophone regions.”

Human Rights Watch says they documented 26 cases of incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance at the SED detention site between January 2018 and January 2019, including 14 cases of torture. The total numbers are likely much higher, they say, because abuses are committed in secret and many former detainees are reluctant to speak because they fear reprisals. Human Rights Watch says it has received further credible accounts since April, indicating that these violations continue.

They say authorities should promptly conduct credible investigations into all allegations of torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment at the SED and all other places of detention. They should ensure that all security force personnel and other detention officials implicated in torture and other ill-treatment are appropriately disciplined or prosecuted. Senior officials should be held to account as a matter of command responsibility.

Failing a serious effort by the Cameroonian government to confront torture, Human Rights Watch says Cameroon’s international partners should reconsider their support, including training and capacity-building, to institutions directly involved in these human rights violations.

“The Cameroonian government’s responsibility to protect its population from armed groups never justifies using torture,” Mudge said. “To restore trust, the government needs to respect the rule of law by ending unlawful practices and holding those responsible to account.”

The Cameroonian government has publicly asserted that unofficial detention and torture do not exist in Cameroon. However, Human Rights Watch says the government did not reply to a letter presenting findings and requesting a response to specific questions.