The lawyers for the civil party (the victims of the massacre) say no one is above the law. As such, they insist that the following officials must appear as prosecution witnesses before the Yaoundé military tribunal:   the chain of military commanding operations and the local administration of the North West, spanning from the military general, the Governor, and Senior Divisional Officer for Donga Mantung Division.

They regret that out of the four accused whose names appeared in the cause list, only three of them, Baba Guida, Sanding Sanding, and And Haranga Gilbert appeared before the military tribunal when the case opened on December 17, 2020.

“The fourth accused, Tita Nfor Maxwell alias Bullet, we gathered from the state prosecutor was arrested and duly identified but evaporated from the hands of investigators and is currently on the run,” the lawyers said in their dispatch signed on their behalf by Barrister Nico Tanyi Amungwa. “We regret that none of the members of the seventeen vigilantes who guided the military to Ngarbuh Ntumbaw that ill-fated February 14, 2020, to commit their ominous mission, did not appear [before the court].”

The legal department argued that the 17 vigilante members are not a regularly recognized corps and that they managed to arrest four military men because they belong to an official and identified corps.

The counsels for the civil party insist that the report of the fact-finding mission upon publication was emphatical to the effect that all those suspected to have been involved in the massacre were to be brought before the competent jurisdiction. They reiterated, the legal department must ensure that the accused on the run be re-arrested and brought for prosecution before the tribunal.

Human Rights Watch says the Ngarbuh trial is a vital move in tackling impunity among Cameroon’s security forces. “Survivors and family members of those murdered in Ngarbuh are finally a step closer to getting justice,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch reports that Cameroonian security forces and an armed militia killed 21 people in the Ngarbuh massacre on February 14, 2020, including 13 children and a pregnant woman. It was one of the worst atrocities since the conflict began, the group said.

The government initially denied the reports, denouncing them as “terrorist propaganda” about an “unfortunate accident.” But after international pressure, it admitted in April that there had been a massacre and a military cover-up. An inquiry found that the military had tried to suppress the truth by burning homes and filing a false report.

“Ngarbuh was not an isolated case, but part of a long history of military abuses in the Anglophone regions,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “Impunity has been a key driver of the Anglophone crisis and there has been little to no accountability for serious crimes committed by both government forces and armed separatist fighters.”

For their alleged roles in the Ngarbuh massacre, the three members of Cameroon’s security forces have been charged with murder, destruction, arson, disobeying orders, and violence against a pregnant woman.

“We expect that justice should be done for those who suffered the brutal killings of their family members,” Ernest Gbaka, one of the lawyers for the victims and their families, is quoted as saying.

If the trial at the military tribunal is fair, it will be “crucial in helping to end the cycles of violence and impunity that have plagued the anglophone regions for the last four years,” Ms. Allegrozzi said.

The trail that opened on December 17, 2020, was adjourned to January 21, 2021, to enable some counsel of the civil and defense parties to perfect their appearances, to allow defense and prosecution to file lists of their witnesses, and most importantly to summon representatives of the Minister Delegate at the Presidency of the Republic in charge of Defense.