Awing in tears and fears over military conduct!
I recently travelled to Awing Village, and I feel compelled to report what I personally witnessed and what residents of the village are openly experiencing regarding the conduct of some gendarmes stationed there.
The population of Awing is crying. What is happening on the ground is real and ongoing. Gendarmes who are meant to protect civilians are instead abusing them. These abuses include the forceful and illegal collection of money, harassment, intimidation, beatings, and arbitrary punishment of innocent people.
A resident explained an incident that occurred a few weeks ago. A gendarme entered a barbershop and collected money from customers who were waiting to be shaved. When the barber asked him to refund the clients’ money, the gendarme left and returned with his colleagues. They brutally beat the barber and others present, then left with the money.
This is not an isolated case. Gendarmes regularly enter people’s homes, force them outside, and demand national ID cards without justification. Recently, one father was severely beaten until he removed 35,000 FCFA from his pocket and handed it over, begging them to spare his life.
The gendarmerie brigade has also been turned into a social lodge for cohabitation. Gendarmes bring groups of girls out of Awing to live at the brigade. These girls move freely around the village( Most of them are not even Awing), and are terrorising civilians. If anyone dares to respond, the gendarmes are called in to beat the person or arrest and detain them. How can they even host women at their brigade in a place considered insecure?
There are repeated cases where civilians are abused because of personal disputes involving women linked to certain gendarmes. These women are used to settle personal scores, leading to intimidation, beatings, humiliation, and unlawful detention of innocent villagers.
When victims attempt to complain, they are threatened. Gendarmes openly tell civilians that their cases cannot go anywhere because Awing is considered a “war zone,” and that they can shoot anyone, write their own reports, and their commanders will believe them. These statements have instilled deep fear and silence among the population.
Another narrates that A young man was hunted by these same Gendarms all over the village because he disciplined his own younger sisters from keeping late nights and consuming hard drugs and Alcohol.
These abuses are mostly committed by some notorious ones ( gendarmes ) who are really destabilizing the village, and we are still trying to get their names and pictures.
All of this is happening openly, without any visible disciplinary action. Whether by knowledge or inaction, the brigade command has allowed these practices to continue. As a result, the people of Awing feel abandoned, unsafe, and powerless.
The population of Awing is not against the forces of law and order. They want protection, professionalism, and respect for human dignity as guaranteed by law. They are calling for this particular group of gendarmes to be removed and replaced with officers who will do their job diligently. They are also appealing to higher authorities to intervene urgently and restore trust between the security forces and the community.
I fear the Youths might revolt against these forces of law because their abuses adds everyday. Awing has been relatively calm for some time now, but I fear their actions might turn things around. The Youths are crying
I hope your respected media house will investigate this situation and help give a voice to a population that is suffering in silence.
Awing is not alone; in Tabenken, it’s the Batallon d’Intervention Rapide – BIR doing exactly this in tandem with a so-called vigilante group. Our villages are not safe again since Paul Biya declared war in 2017
Thank you.”
Southern Cameroons’ Ambazonian villages no longer safe with excesses from Yaounde Occupational forces
