Buea – 12 February 2022

CHRDA strongly condemns the burning down of the Queen of the Rosary College Okoyong in Mamfe, Manyu Division of the Southwest Region. 

On the occasion of National Youth Day in Cameroon, February 11, 2022, an arson attack was carried out at a Catholic-owned boarding school for girls in Okoyong, Mamfe. The arsonists, suspected to be armed separatist fighters, could be seen burning school dormitories and firing guns in videos they recorded and shared on social media, which have been received and analyzed by CHRDA.

CHRDA has also spoken to a number of witnesses who recounted that the incident happened at about 2:00am when the arsonists invaded the school, burning down the Fatima Dormitory. They also mentioned that the operation was led by a known separatist leader called Orock George Dickinson, who is also a son of Okoyong Village, was seen in the village prior to the incident, and whose voice was identified in the video by the villagers.

During the commission of the crime, the arsonists could be heard threatening the wailing and panicking students in the background dialogues in the video. They threatened the students, asking them "whether they will go and march." This suggests that the attack was aimed at disrupting the celebration of National Youth Day in Manyu Division. On the occasion of National Youth Days, February 11 and May 20, marching parades by students generally occur in the ceremonial grounds of the administrative headquarters of the Subdivisions. 

February 11 is a very significant date in the history of Cameroon, as it is the day on which the British Southern Cameroons voted in a plebiscite to reunite with La Republique du Cameroun in 1961, forming a two-state federation known as the Federal Republic of Cameroon, composed of West and East Cameroon, which was later dissolved in 1972. The dissolution of the federal structure laid the foundation for the Anglophone Crisis that has today witnessed thousands of lives lost with teachers and students among the victims attacked and killed by armed groups. 

Before the arson attack at Queen College Okoyong, armed separatist fighters on January 12, 2022, also attacked Government High School Bwitingi in Buea, Fako Division of the Southwest Region, stripping over a dozen students naked and humiliating them. They also threatened to shoot and kill the students for attending school against the separatists’ call for a school boycott in restive Anglophone Regions.

The domain of education has been used by separatist fighters as a weapon of war in the Anglophone Crisis, including by threatening and sometimes attacking and killing students and teachers for refusing to obey their calls for the school boycott.

CHRDA strongly condemns these attacks perpetrated against students and school institutions as they constitute war crimes prohibited by the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of 1977, as well as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, clearly defined in Article 8, and perpetrators must be held accountable.

The Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA) is an independent, non-governmental, apolitical and non-profit making organization created in 2005, dedicated to the protection and advancement of human rights and the promotion of democracy as a political culture in Africa. The CHRDA is based in Buea in the Southwest region of Cameroon.

 For more information, please contact:

CHRDA: chrda@chrda.org