U.S. President Donald Trump recently ended Cameroon’s preferential trade benefits citing what he called the African country’s persistent gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.

In a letter to the U.S. Congress, Trump said Cameroon had failed to address U.S. concerns regarding extrajudicial killings, torture and other persistent human rights violations being committed by Cameroonian security forces.

Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney said the U.S. government remained deeply concerned about human rights violations committed by the Cameroonian government against its own citizens. But this has done little to threaten the status quo in Yaoundé, leaving outside commentators to puzzle over what some are calling the “Cameroonian exception”.

The continue detention of Epie Davidson Kolle, one of Southern Cameroons activists who entered the US via Mexico, underscores just how little has changed within the US immigration department ever since the President Trump administration made the crisis in Cameroon a top priority.

While the US embassy in Yaoundé is exerting maximum pressure on the Biya Francophone regime to stop its genocidal campaign in English speaking Cameroon, the US immigration department continues to stifle Southern Cameroon political dissent.

The “Migrant in ICE Custody Affair” in which a Southern Cameroonian Nebane Abienwi, a 37 year old father of six seeking asylum in the United States was pulled off life support while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement also exposes the need to reform the US Immigration Department.

Nebane Abienwi, died on 1 October after suffering from a “medical emergency” while being detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Centre, an ICE-run facility in San Diego in the USA.

This time around, another Southern Cameroonian is being detained in the US having fled the conflict in Cameroon. Epie Davidson Kolle like many other Ambazonians fear he will be killed if he is repatriated, according to Cameroon Intelligence Report sources who have confirmed the threats to his life are real.

We gathered that US immigration officials are planning to force him on to a plane to leave the country. At the time of filing this report, our correspondent in the USA confirmed that Epie Davidson Kolle has been denied permission to stay in the country.

This item is still developing

By Chi Prudence Asong