Cameroonian journalist dies in detention: NGOs and lawyers call for independent investigation

The lawyers of a Cameroonian journalist who died in detention, Samuel Wazizi, demanded Tuesday before the high court of Buea (Southwest) that an investigation be opened, request taken up by several international NGOs. "Given the contradictory facts surrounding the death of Samuel Wazizi, we will request an investigation into the cause of his death," said his lawyers in a statement.

According to them, the court which responded to their habeas corpus request, issued before the announcement of the death of their client, was satisfied to quote a press release published by the Cameroonian army on Friday which affirms that their client died two weeks after his arrest, in August 2019. The army accuses him of having acted as a “logistician of various terrorist groups” in the English-speaking west, torn apart by a separatist conflict.

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Six Cameroonian NGOs and four international NGOs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, also called for an "independent, effective, thorough and impartial" investigation in a joint statement. "We are still shocked that the authorities have disappeared Wazizi and concealed his death for 10 months," said Felix Agbor Nkongho, President of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), in this press release. In Yaoundé, Douala and Buea, journalists gathered Tuesday to request an investigation, at the call of the National Union of Journalists of Cameroon (SNJC).

For now, the only announcement on the follow-up to the case was made by French Ambassador Christophe Guilhou on Friday, after an interview with President Paul Biya, who "told him he was going to lead an investigation" , said the ambassador to national television CRTV.

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The NGOs also claim that the UN Security Council "officially adds the situation in Cameroon to its agenda in order to be able to follow it more closely" . For nearly three years, the English-speaking regions of North-West and South-West of Cameroon have been shaken by violent clashes between the army and separatist groups. The fighting, but also the atrocities and murders committed against civilians by the two camps, left more than 3,000 dead and forced more than 700,000 people to flee their homes.