The International Crisis Group (ICG), a transnational NGO, is ringing the alarm about a deadlock in negotiations that many hoped would bring peace to the restive English-speaking regions of Cameroon.
“In the last 20 months, the conflict has left 1,850 dead, 530,000 internally displaced and tens of thousands of refugees. The intransigence of the belligerents threatens to generate further violence and prolong the conflict, which neither (side) can win in the short term”, the ICG emphasised in a 2 May report.
The so-called Anglophone Crisis, also known as the Ambazonia War, began in September 2017, when separatists in English-speaking Northwest Region and Southwest Region, together known as Southern Cameroons, proclaimed independence from Yaoundé.
Commenting on the ICG findings, Joseph Lea Ngoula, a security analyst, highlighted that “in just 20 months, the escalation of the crisis in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon has generated the same number of civilian and military casualties as the Boko Haram* conflict did in four years”.
“This is a record in the recent history of Cameroon”, the security analyst told Sputnik France. “And the government forces fail to stop the irresistible rise of separatist militias”.
Founded in 2002, Boko Haram is a jihadist terrorist organisation based in Nigeria. It is also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon.