Last week, the popular radio journalist Mbani Zogo Arsène Salomon, better known as Martinez Zogo, was found dead on the outskirts of Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon.
Zogo was kidnapped by unknown people five days before. His mutilated body showed signs that he had been tortured before his death.
The killings are the latest in an escalating trend of forced and sometimes fatal disappearances in Cameroon.
In one incident last year, 40 commercial motorcyclists were intercepted and taken into what appeared to be state prisoners. Twenty-four of them were later detained at a military facility in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s northwest region.
Later, in court, he was accused of collaborating with Anglophone separatists.
The sister of one of the 16 who remains unidentified said about the day last April when they were taken. “My brother called me to ask him to wear traditional clothes. After that conversation, I did not see or hear from him. This is despite visits to various police stations and gendarmerie brigades for any information.
In 2020, the Cameroonian government admitted that journalist Samuel Wazizi died in prison shortly after he was arrested the previous year for reporting critical of the government’s handling of the separatist conflict.
The conflict, which is the background of this general disappearance, started in October 2016, when lawyers’ and teachers’ unions launched street demonstrations against the mandatory use of French in schools and courts in the two English-speaking regions.
These two regions, in the north-west and south-west of Cameroon, are home to about five million of the country’s 24 million people. When the protests were suppressed by the state, the situation turned into an armed struggle for independence called the secessionists of Ambazonia.
Milling has become an important part of the struggle, with all sides taking people. His family was left without closure.
“It’s been more than four years today. I don’t know where my father is and whether he’s alive or dead,” said Abedine Akweton Abilitu, whose father was arrested in 2018 on suspicion of collaborating with the rebels. “I had to stop school to help mom look for dad.”
Her mother died last May without knowing what happened to her husband. Secessionist groups have also been accused of “disappearing” people. The main target is civil servants in conflict areas.
In June 2021, the group was accused of kidnapping six prominent envoys in the southwest of the country. One of the messengers died.
In December of that year, the local chief, Fon Yakum Kevin Teuvih, head of the assembly for traditional authorities in the northwest region, was captured by separatists.
Justice and closure are even more elusive when the rebels become kidnappers. “They have no legal structure, no visible and organized chain of command, so it is very difficult to find justice,” said Blaise Chamango, head of Human is Right.
Human rights defenders are using unusual strategies to get answers.
“I remember we once sent a woman to and cried in front of the security post in Buea, where her son was detained for months.” Chamango said. “Three days later he was released unconditionally.”
According to a report from the Crisis Group and the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs in Cameroon, more than 2.2 million people are affected by the crisis in the northwestern and southwestern regions of Cameroon.
More than 6,000 people have been killed according to the same report, and 956,000 have been displaced, of which more than 70,000 are refugees in Nigeria.
This article first appeared on Continenta pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with Mail & Guardians. It is designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp. Download a free copy at mg.co.za/thecontinent/