Cameroon military torture, sexually exploit Nigerian refugees –HRW
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday, that Cameroonian soldiers have
tortured, assaulted, and sexually exploited Nigerian asylum seekers in remote
border areas, since 2015.
The organization also says that the francophone nation has denied the
refugees access to the UN refugee agency, and summarily deported, often
violently, tens of thousands to Nigeria.
HRW in a 55-page report, ‘They Forced Us Onto Trucks Like Animals’: Cameroon’s
Mass Forced Return and Abuse of Nigerian Refugees,” documents that Cameroon’s
military has carried out a mass forced return of 100,000 Nigerian asylum
seekers in an effort to stem the spread of Boko Haram.
The deportations defy the UN refugee agency’s plea not to return anyone to
northeast Nigeria “until the security and human rights situation has improved
considerably,” and leaves deportees facing spiralling violence, displacement
and destitution.
It also documents violence, poor conditions, and unlawful movement
restrictions in Cameroon’s only official camp for Nigerian refugees, as well as
conditions recent returnees face in Nigeria.
“The Cameroonian military’s torture and abuse of Nigerian refugees and
asylum seekers seems to be driven by an arbitrary decision to punish them for
Boko Haram attacks in Cameroon and to discourage Nigerians from seeking
asylum,” said Gerry Simpson, associate refugee director at Human Rights Watch.
“Cameroon should heed the UN’s call on all countries to protect refugees
fleeing the carnage in northeast Nigeria, not return them there.”
Human Rights Watch said in late June and July 2017, it interviewed 61 asylum
seekers and refugees in Nigeria about the abuses they faced in Cameroon.
It claimed that the asylum seekers said soldiers had accused them of
belonging to Boko Haram, a Nigerian militant Islamist terror group, or of being
“Boko Haram wives” while torturing or assaulting them and dozens of others on
arrival, during their stay in remote border areas, and during mass
deportations.
“The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says it has heard
similar accounts from Nigerians living in Cameroon’s border areas”, HRW stated.
A statement from the body explained, that “Some said their children,
weakened after living for months or years without adequate food and medical
care in border areas, died during or just after the deportations, and others
said children were separated from their parents.
“An asylum seeker who was deported from Mora in March 2017 described how
without warning, Cameroonian soldiers rounded up 40 asylum seekers “and
severely beat us and forced us onto a bus. They beat some of the men so badly,
they were heavily bleeding. When we got to the Nigerian border they shouted ‘Go
and die in Nigeria.’”
The statement further said “Refugees who reached Cameroon’s only designated
camp for Nigerian refugees, in Minawao, have also faced violence from
Cameroonian soldiers. While they have some protection as refugees, the
approximately 70,000 people there have had limited access to food and water and
abusive restrictions on their movement. In April and May, 13,000 returned from
Minawao to a displacement camp in Banki, just across the border in Nigeria.
Some were killed in early September when Boko Haram attacked the camp.
“Although UNHCR does not have reliable access to most of Cameroon’s border
areas with Nigeria, in early June it said its monitoring partners found
Cameroon had forcibly returned almost 100,000 Nigerians to their country since
January 2015. In late June, the Nigerian authorities responded to Cameroonian
pressure by sending military vehicles over the border to help Cameroon deport
almost 1,000 asylum seekers. That made Nigeria complicit in the unlawful forced
return of its own citizens.
“Tens of thousands of deportees from Cameroon end up in insecure militarized
displacement camps or villages in Borno State, where conditions are dire, and
women and girls face sexual exploitation. These sites are surrounded by the
ongoing conflict between Nigeria’s armed forces and Boko Haram, which as of
mid-September had displaced almost 2 million other Nigerian civilians.
“Cameroon’s forced returns are a breach of the principle of nonrefoulement,
which prohibits the forcible return of refugees and asylum seekers to
persecution and, under regional standards in Africa, to situations of
generalized violence, such as in northeast Nigeria.
“Since 2014, Cameroonian armed forces have carried out operations against
Boko Haram in the country’s Far North Region. Cameroon has the right to
regulate the presence of non-nationals on its territory, including those proven
to be threat to its national security. The authorities also have an obligation
to carefully investigate attacks in Cameroon by suspected Boko Haram members.
However, it may not block refugees from seeking asylum and summarily deport
them.
“After staying publicly silent on the situation for two years, in late
March, UNHCR publicly criticized the authorities for their mass forced refugee
returns. The criticism was triggered by deportations after Cameroon had signed
an agreement that month with Nigeria and UNHCR confirming that it would ensure
that all refugee return was voluntary.
“As of mid-September, the Cameroonian authorities had allowed UNHCR only to
pre-register asylum seekers in some border communities, leaving those
pre-registered and tens of thousands of other asylum seekers without access to
meaningful protection and putting them at risk of deportation.
“The Cameroonian authorities deny any forced return or abuse of Nigerian
asylum seekers and have not replied to a Human Rights Watch request for a
response to the report’s findings. Cameroon has had a reputation as a generous
country toward refugees since the early 1970s and it has hosted tens and then
hundreds of thousands of refugees since then”, the statement read.
Simpson added that “Faced with overwhelming evidence of mass refugee abuse
and UN condemnation, Cameroon is trying to bury its head in the sand.
“But returning tens of thousands of Nigerians to harm and destitution will
only further shred its well-deserved reputation as a generous refugee-hosting
country.”
Cameroon military torture, sexually exploit Nigerian refugees –HRW
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Friday, September 29, 2017
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