Pastor Tanjoh was a community leader and humanitarian aid worker with the local nongovernmental organization Community Initiative for Sustainable Development, the U.S. Embassy in Yaoundé said in a dispatch Tuesday, August 11.

“The murder of Pastor Tanjoh is a terrible reminder of the dangers humanitarian aid workers face in the Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon. We call for an independent investigation into the killing and for the perpetrators to be brought to justice in accordance with Cameroonian law,” the press release reads.

“We condemn all acts of violence against humanitarian aid workers and call for their unhindered access to those in need in accordance with international humanitarian law.”

Cameroon-Info.Net remembers that Pastor Tanjoh Christopher Fon, 55, a humanitarian aid worker with the Community Initiative for Sustainable Development, COMINSUD, was murdered Friday, August 7, 2020, in Guzang, Batibo Subdivision, Momo Division of Cameroon’s North West Region.

The Pastor of the New Apostolic Church was serving with COMINSUD as a field agent for the general food distribution project supported by the World Food Program (WFP) to affected and displaced persons in the Guzang cluster.

“Tanjoh Christopher was abducted from his home by armed men at about 9 a.m. and about 11 a.m., the family was alerted that he had been abandoned at the entrance to the St. John of God Hospital Batibo bleeding to death,” said Fon Nsoh, Coordinator of COMINSUD.

Concordant sources, including the immediate family members of the deceased, said Pastor Tanjoh’s “crime” was that he denounced the excesses of the armed men on the civilian population they claim to protect.

In an audio recorded in the Moghamo local dialect and sent to an “Amba captain”, whom Tanjoh referred to as “my junior brother”, Tanjoh is head advising the rebel against greed and extortion.

He also condemned kidnappings and extortion of ransom from the population they claim to protect. He said armed separatists could not claim to “… be fighting against La Republique when at the same time they were terrorizing the population.” He concludes that as a Pastor, and under the God he serves, he would always stand for the truth.

“We think that as an older person and pastor, he did just what he was supposed to do. Civilians should not be the target and the object of the current armed conflict,” said Fon Nsoh, COMINSUD Coordinator. “If people are to fight for the population, they should not also make the population suffer. By every standard, civilians, especially aid workers, need protection within the context of the conflict between persons in arms.”

COMINSUD says they continue to appeal for the protection of humanitarian aid workers and the vulnerable population especially by all parties involved in the longstanding crisis in the North West and South West Regions since 2017.

“We remain deeply saddened by this horrific execution of a humanitarian by all standards and condemn the act in very strong terms. Our deepest condolences go to the family,” Fon Nsoh’s dispatch read in part.

Pastor Tanjoh was born on August 8, 1965, and was to celebrate his 55th birthday on Saturday, August 8, 2020. Sadly, he was buried in Guzang on his birthday.