Amb. Kelly craft: responsibility to protect is now. 21 killed again in British S. Cameroon by French Cameroun Soldiers.

“You used him and dumped to be killed” one chat group user fumes over the killing of a witness who had earlier provided vital information to the UN and other Human Rights Organization about the killing of 37 people including 14 children and two pregnant women at Ngarbuh, North West British Cameroon, on Valentine’s Day, 2020. Mallam Danjuma, had earlier been arrested, tortured and kept incommunicado since February 24, 2020, by French Cameroun soldiers. Activists and sympathizers had raised the alarm on social media like twitter to the UN and Human Rights Watch that elevated the poor Danjuma to the target list of French Cameroun genocidal authorities” He has been murdered and dumped in Kikaikelaki, miles from where he was arrested, because the UN failed to protect him” Another twitter post states.

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As the world was still to confirm if truly whether Mallam Danjuma was alive or dead, the people of Babanki Tungo, still in North West British Cameroon were in another mourning as the French Cameroun troops invaded the farming community around 3 am, February 29, 2020. They killed about 19 civilians including women and children. The gruesome killings did not end at the northern part of the territory. In Ebam in Eyumojock, the military raided the village and arrested one Ojong Thomas Ebot. Hours later he was brought back and publicly executed. Locals confessed he was an expatriate who returned to the village to better his life through farming.

Responsibility to protect

“….Sovereignty is not just protection from outside interference – rather is a matter of states having positive responsibilities for their population’s welfare, and to assist each other. Consequently, the primary responsibility for the protection of its people rested first and foremost with the State itself. However, a ‘residual responsibility’ also lied with the broader community of states, which was ‘activated when a particular state is clearly either unwilling or unable to fulfill its responsibility to protect or is itself the actual perpetrator of crimes or atrocities”

” In case these governments fail, “Heads of State and Government affirmed their responsibility to protect their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and accepted a collective responsibility to encourage and help each other uphold this commitment. They also declared their preparedness to take timely and decisive action, in accordance with the United Nations Charter and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations, when national authorities manifestly fail to…” More

With the killings in British Southern Cameroon, isn’t it time for the UN to invoke the Responsibility to Protect the minority English-speaking people of British Cameroon? Since the Ngarbuh Massacre on 14 February 2020, more than 78 innocent civilians have been killed by French Cameroun soldiers under 87-year-old Paul Biya, in power since 1982. For the images of the more than 78 victims killed post Ngarbuh, click here