Cameroon govt admits its army’s role in civilian killings

Cameroon’s military has admitted that three members of its airborne battalion had earlier this week attacked civilians and killed two mothers in Nylbat, an English-speaking village in Andeck district.
According to a statement by the military, the troops, who were dispatched to fight separatists in the troubled northwestern region, violated orders from military hierarchy and started shooting indiscriminately on civilians, killing two harmless mothers. The government says family members of the killed mothers rushed to the scene and collected corpses when the government troops left. Speaking via the messaging app WhatsApp from Andeck, a relative of one victim said civilians sealed their businesses and refused to go to their farms for three days as a sign of protest against Monday’s killings.
The government said it had arrested the three troops that fired upon unarmed civilians. But Eyong Tarh, an official with the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, says rights groups in Cameroon will continue exerting pressure until the military punishes all of its troops who have committed atrocities. “I have a worry whether the culprits will be brought to book, because similar cases have taken place but we don’t know what has happened to the perpetrators,” Tara said. Rights groups have repeatedly accused both Cameroon’s military and anglophone separatists of killing civilians and torching their homes during their five years of fighting. Each side rejects the accusations as intended to tarnish its image.