By Doh Bertrand Nua
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged government to step up measures across the crisis-hit Anglophone regions towards protecting childrens right to education.
School campus in NWR before crisis crippled schools
The international rights organization in a recent report also urged government to ensure independent and effective investigations are carried out on the attack at Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy where seven students were killed and over 13 injured.
This massacre is a grim reminder of the horrific toll that the crisis in Cameroons English-speaking regions has had on children and their education, said Ida Sawyer, Deputy Africa Director at Human Rights Watch.
Gunmen attack and kill in classrooms
The authorities should ensure that the promised investigation is independent, effective, and impartial and that those responsible for this brazen attack on school children are brought to justice,” Sawyer added, stating that the Kumba incident is the latest in a series of shocking attacks on children and education in the trouble regions.
The government needs to do more to ensure that children can study safely. The authorities should ensure that those responsible for the Kumba massacre are held to account, deter further attacks, and secure childrens fundamental right to education, Sawyer insisted.
HRW regretted that that the attacks are coming at a time Cameroon has endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration an international political commitment to protect education in times of conflict and violence.
In June, in response to the gravity and number of attacks on schools, the killing and maiming of children, and the recruitment and use of children, the UN Secretary-General added Cameroon as a situation of concern for the UNs monitoring and reporting mechanism on grave violations against children during armed conflict, the report revealed.
School boycotts were instituted in 2016 at the start of the crisis by the now outlawed Cameroon Civil Society Consortium.
It has since 2017 been enforced by armed separatist groups in the Anglophone regions, trying to pressure the government to support their call for independence of the Anglophone regions.
Separatist fighters have attacked schools, kidnapped and assaulted hundreds of pupils, students, teachers for failing to comply with their demands to keep schools closed. They have used schools as bases, torturing and holding people hostage.
Security forces across the two regions fighting to restore order have also been implicated in attacks and have committed other serious human rights violations, including against children in Ngarbuh village during a reprisal attack aimed at punishing back separatist fighters.
Attacks on schools have had a devastating impact on education. According to the United Nations, 81 percent of children were out of school across the troubled Anglophone regions during the 2019/2020 academic year.
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