Story, Louvier KIndo Tombe
In 2018, 16 years old Abedine Akweton Abilitu had to drop out from school to assist her mother in searching for her father who went missing during a military raid in Buea, South West region of Cameroon. The raid was connection to the ongoing Anglophone crisis. Few months later, her mother died without knowing the where about of her husband.
“It’s been over six years today, I can’t tell where my father is, nor if he is alive or dead,” the teenager told this reporter. She has become the pathfinder of the family taking care of her 3 juniors.
The situation of Abedine is not too different from that of thousands of Cameroonians faced with an escalating trend of forced and sometimes fatal disappearances in the country as a result of armed conflicts of varied magnitudes.
Amnesty International in 2020 reported that some 130 out of about 200 Cameroonians arrested five years ago during a cordon-and-search operation in the Far North region were nowhere to be found.
Similarly, three years after some 40 commercial motorcycle riders were stopped in Bamenda, North West region of Cameroon and taken into what appeared to have been state custody, 16 of the riders remain unaccounted for, while 24 others later turned up in detention at a military facility, where they were later accused of collaborating with Anglophone separatists.
Since 2019, the family of journalist Samuel Ajiekah Abuwe, fondly called “Samuel Wazizi” is living in desperation as he is nowhere to be found. In 2020, the Cameroonian government admitted that he died in prison shortly after he was arrested for his critical reporting on government’s handling of the Anglophone crisis. According to Emmanuel Nkea, lawyer of the journalist, “the family is still to see his corpse”.
The fate of five of six high-profile government delegates kidnapped by separatist fighters in the South West region of Cameroon in June 2021 is still unknown. One of them was later declared dead.
Disappearances have been a key part of the different conflicts in Cameroon and the families, now living apart are left with little or no closure.
Ending 2023, more than 239,700 missing persons were registered by the Red Cross’ world network to reestablish family links. The International Community of the Red Cross reported in 2020 that nearly half of 44,000 missing people registered in Africa were children. Countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cameroon make up 82 percent of the ICRC’s missing caseload in the continent. Reports show that the disappearance rate keeps increasing among countries in Africa and the world at large.
Cameroon does not keep public data on the various crisis and conflicts that are taking place throughout the country. There is thus a real challenge to be met on quality of data on missing persons. The ICRC has been instrumental in that light.
Seeds of hope
That morning of 13 August 2024, Christelle’s family was still in doubt if truly she will be returning home as announced. They had gathered to wait for her. The little girl was only 3 years old when she got separated from her family due to violence in Central Africa Republic with spillover effects in Cameroon’s East region. Her family had spent close to 10 years without information about her.
“I thought she had died”, her mother said as she sat among close to 30 family members anxiously waiting. Behind every missing person, there is a family looking for answers. The family of Christelle has been living in trauma since she got missing.
Just like Christelle, many are those who are separated from their families on a daily basis across the world due to conflicts. No matter the reason for the separation, the impact is the same.
Christelle was found thanks to the intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross in collaboration (ICRC), which is an impartial, neutral and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence, and to provide them with assistance.
According to Ismael Ndoti Djo, a volunteer worker with the Cameroon Red Cross, who assisted in relocating Christelle, They were contacted by her mother in 2022. “She personally came to the office and reported the disappearance of her daughter”.
Present in Cameroon since 1992, the ICRC deploys protection and assistance programs for people and communities affected by consequences of armed conflict and violence in the Far North, North-West and South-West regions, often in collaboration with the Cameroon Red Cross (CRC), its privileged operational partner.
Christelle is one of the latest family members that the ICRC has succeeded to reunite with their families in Cameroon. In 2023, the ICRC reunited 3 separated or missing persons with their families, they located and is in contact with over 200 others, and 1,154 families that have lost a member were contacted by the organization. They also enabled families of separated people to exchange news and keep in touch with their lost ones by issuing 153 exchange letters and collecting 40 requests for notification from detainees to inform their families of their detention.
“We are very happy because what we started ended well,” Ismael Ndoti Djo voluntary worker, Cameroon Red Cross said concerning the case of Christelle. “It encourages us to do more.”
The Geneva Convention adopted in 1949 and universally ratified, are the backbone of the actions of the ICRC’s actions and the International Humanitarian Law. The convention and the law protect those not or no longer participating in armed conflicts, save lives and reduce sufferings. 75 years on the IHL remains as relevant as ever, but has evolved in tandem with the new realities like cyber warfare, autonomous weapons.
Besides reuniting families, the ICRC celebrates the international day of missing persons on October 30 each year, and World Humanitarian Day every 19 august, the ICRC in partnership with the Cameroon Red Cross, has since 2021 set up a program aimed at accompanying family members of people who went missing during conflicts. Christelle is one of those who have benefitted from healthcare, water and sanitation services of the program.
“Before I didn’t interact with people because I felt pain and suffering, but there is a big change now,” Aida, one of the beneficiaries of the program said. “The program has helped me to learn that I am not the only one in this situation and has also empowered me in multiple fronts.”
Last year, 171,744 patients, including 89’116 children under the age of 5, received health care in 13 health centers supported by the ICRC, 1,226 victims of violence – including 49 cases of sexual violence – received treatment, 68,810 people benefited from improved access to drinking water in urban and rural areas, while 4 health centers and one hospital infrastructures were improved among many others.
Food supplements have also been given to children affected by conflicts in the Far North region of Cameroon as well as agricultural seeds distributed to farmers who are mostly victims of armed conflicts.
Challenging humanitarian efforts
Humanitarian actions are sometimes challenging especially when protagonists do not master the ILH or fail to respect it. Sometimes humanitarian workers become targets in armed conflicts and it greatly affects their services.
In 2021 in Cameroon, one of ICRC’s employee was killed in active service following injuries he suatained during an attack in Bamenda in the North-West of the country. Identified as Diomede Nzobambona, the 62-year-old Canadian was delegate working in the fields of water and sanitation.
Rule 55 of the IHL prescribes that “the parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need, which is impartial in character and conducted without any adverse distinction, subject to their right of control”.
Diomede Nzobambona, was in Bamenda to provide humanitarian assistance to communities affected by the armed violence in the region according to a statement from the ICRC in 2021.
The International medical humanitarian organization “Doctors Without Borders” has also suffered from attacks in the country with the arrest, trial and detention of five of its staff over allegations of complicity with separatist fighters. The situation pushed them to seize activities in the country at one point. Worth noting is that the staff members were exonerated and by extension the organization of any wrongdoing.
