Human rights groups including the leadership of the Roman Catholic have sounded a note of caution and warned about the significant deterioration of human rights in La Republique du Cameroun, stating that no international pressure on the Sub Saharan country has emboldened the ruling CPDM regime of President Biya not to shy away from its heavy-handed crackdown on Southern Cameroons citizens.

Biya’s Cameroon is now clearly sliding in a new and very dangerous direction with 47 people including the Southern Cameroons Ambazonian political leaders arrested in Nigeria now in Yaoundé. “The fairly weak level of restraint that was there last year with the existence of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has all but gone,” noted our chief correspondent in the Bamenda County. There is an urgent need for the US administration and France to wield their influence on the Yaoundé regime and step up their criticism.

Activists who fled to neighbouring Nigeria said at a meeting in Ikom on Monday that the human rights situation has deteriorated in Southern Cameroons as 100s of people were killed in Kwa Kwa village and more than five thousand have abandoned their homes in Kembong, Dadi and Ekok in the Manyu State. There are renewed reports of torture in detention and military courts in Yaoundé, Bafoussam and Douala and many including radio host Bibixy Mancho and the extradited leaders are now sitting on death row.

A senior pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons political elite who spoke to us late last night said many within the regime are seriously worried about the health of imprisoned Anglophone activists. Last week alarming signals multiplied regarding the heavy deployment of Francophone soldiers in Manyu, Meme and Bui constituencies.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Biya regime Issa Tchiroma Bakary who also moonlights as minister of communication announced that the Ambazonian leadership handed over to Yaounde by the Buhari administration will face the death penalty.

The Interim Head of State of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides were arrested in Abuja Nigeria by the country’s Secret Service and with no due legal process were handed over to the authorities of La Republique du Cameroun.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups have already censured the Abuja arrest and called for the release of the Southern Cameroons leaders. The Biya Francophone regime has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of Anglophone dissent. Recently we got intelligence that troops from the Republic of Chad were deployed to assist the Francophone dominated Cameroon armed forces in its crackdown in Southern Cameroons.

Hundreds of British Southern Cameroonians including women and children have lost their lives and thousands of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the Biya regime’s crackdown.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai