—

having regard to its previous resolutions on Cameroon, in particular that of 18 April 2019 (1),

—

having regard to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Cameroon Situation Report of 5 November 2021 and the EU annual report on human rights and democracy in the world 2020 — Country report: Cameroon of 21 June 2021,

—

having regard to the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement (‘Cotonou Agreement’),

—

having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948,

—

having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966,

—

having regard to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Cameroon ratified in 1993,

—

having regard to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights of 1981,

—

having regard to the Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon,

—

having regard to Rules 144(5) and 132(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.

whereas the initially peaceful protests promoted by the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium against the federal government’s marginalisation of Cameroon’s Anglophone regions in 2016 were suppressed with extreme violence by the state authorities, thereby fuelling support for separatism and the emergence of several separatist militias calling for a new state, Ambazonia, and prompting a bloody military conflict;

B.

whereas dialogue is a precondition for peace, and President Paul Biya’s government has consistently rejected direct talks with any separatist leaders from the Anglophone regions;

C.

whereas Cameroon faces a number of simultaneous political and security challenges, including threats from Boko Haram in its Far North region and an internal armed separatist rebellion which has been ongoing for almost 5 years in its Anglophone North West and South West regions;

D.

whereas Anglophone teachers and lawyers held peaceful strikes and demonstrations in 2016 in the North West and South West regions in opposition to the imposition of the French legal system and language in their courts and classrooms, which triggered the crisis; whereas the armed conflict, ongoing since 2017, has killed thousands of people and led to a full-blown humanitarian crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions;

E.

whereas to date, more than 3 000 civilians and hundreds of members of the security forces have lost their lives; whereas the ongoing conflict in Cameroon has internally displaced over 1 million people; whereas over 2,2 million people require humanitarian assistance and over 66 000 people have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria; whereas Cameroon hosts more than 447 000 refugees and asylum seekers; whereas the spillover of this crisis is affecting the Cameroon West and Littoral regions;

F.

whereas the rule of law is not being upheld by the state of Cameroon, with independent monitors, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, having previously documented military trial proceedings marred by serious substantive and procedural defects, and in which the presumption of innocence, the right to adequate defence, and the independence of proceedings and of the judiciary in general are all seriously undermined;

G.

whereas clashes between Anglophone separatist armed groups and government security forces are increasing in frequency and severity; whereas humanitarian aid has also been heavily disrupted in the affected regions due to non-state armed groups and lockdown measures, leaving people in those regions severely food insecure and depriving tens of thousands of people of access to vital healthcare; whereas few exceptions to the lockdown measures were granted on humanitarian grounds and, as a result, aid disbursement was significantly disrupted; whereas UN agencies have been forced to suspend humanitarian activities, notwithstanding the additional vulnerabilities created by the COVID-19 pandemic;

H.

whereas civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence and conflict between government and separatist forces and make up the vast majority of casualties; whereas government and separatist forces alike are continuously perpetrating reprisal attacks against one another, intentionally targeting civilians and vulnerable parts of the population;

I.

whereas Felix Agbor Nkongho, a human rights lawyer, prominent defender of the rights of the Anglophone minority and advocate for the peaceful resolution of the crisis, has on more than one occasion received death threats from the armed separatist groups; whereas he is not the only person facing attacks and harassment;

J.

whereas, since the 2018 elections, political tensions have spiralled into hate speech on the grounds of ethnicity or political opinion which, in turn, is amplified via social media platforms;

K.

whereas government forces have carried out extrajudicial killings of civilians, including women and children, torture and ill-treatment, committed sexual violence, including rape, and gender-based violence,, destroyed property, including villages, homes, health facilities and hospitals, looted property, and arrested and detained citizens arbitrarily, all as a result of hostilities or presumed collaboration with separatists;

L.

whereas in the first five months of 2021, armed separatists carried out at least 27 attacks with improvised explosive devices in 13 towns, more than in all previous years of the crisis combined; whereas they have raped, killed, tortured, violently assaulted, threatened and kidnapped hundreds of people, including women, humanitarian workers, teachers and children, presumed to have been collaborating with the military;

M.

whereas the conflict has had a disproportionate impact on children, with 700 000 students having been deprived of their right to education due to a forced school boycott across the Anglophone regions; whereas, as of August 2021, children in Cameroon make up 28 % of all survivors of gender-based violence and face a heightened risk of child recruitment, child labour and child abuse, with over 50 % of children in the country having reportedly been abused; whereas, according to the UN Population Fund, 38 % of women in Cameroon aged 20-24 were married before the age of 18 and 13 % were married before the age of 15;

N.

whereas President Biya, in response to international pressure, established a commission of inquiry into the killings in Ngarbuh, following which the government admitted that its security forces bear some responsibility and announced the arrest of individuals involved; whereas, however, there is no further information available on the matter;

O.

whereas a lockdown was strictly enforced, including the closure of almost all schools and learning centres; whereas violence was perpetrated against individuals refusing to observe the lockdown, including children and teachers; whereas schools, universities, and hospitals were attacked, thereby aggravating and prolonging violations of the right to access education and leading to the deprivation of essential health services;

P.

whereas tensions have risen in the country since the presidential elections of 2018; whereas, in September 2019, President Biya organised a national dialogue with the intention of resolving the conflict between armed forces and separatist rebels in the Anglophone regions; whereas two years later the implementation of the measures has yielded few results; whereas various attempts in 2020 and 2021 to resolve the crisis in Cameroon have failed;

Q.

whereas the signature of the presidential decrees providing for the transfer of competences and the gradual transfer of human and financial resources to the decentralised authorities for the concrete implementation of the decentralisation process is pending;

R.

whereas the government continues to restrict the freedoms of expression and association and has become increasingly intolerant of political dissent; whereas hundreds of opposition party members and supporters were arrested following demonstrations calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis in the Anglophone regions; whereas restrictions are persistently placed on political opponents, protestors, journalists and civil society;

S.

whereas Cameroon’s penal code punishes sexual relations between persons of the same sex with up to five years’ imprisonment; whereas numerous cases of arrest and harassment of LGBTQI people have been reported in recent years and months;

T.

whereas Cameroon faces additional threats from Boko Haram and Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the Far North region; whereas attacks by the Islamist armed group Boko Haram have included daily killings, kidnappings, robberies and the destruction of property, which amount to serious human rights abuses and violations of international law and international humanitarian law; whereas such attacks have also involved child suicide bombers and child soldiers; whereas, since December 2020, at least 80 civilians have been killed by Boko Haram, with over 340 000 people being internally displaced as of August 2021; whereas the presumed death of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, in a confrontation in Nigeria with the ISWAP splinter faction helped consolidate ISWAP’s power and increased insecurity in Cameroon’s Far North region; whereas government forces are unable to effectively protect the affected population;

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.