Dozens of inmates of the Buea Central Prison are undergoing inhumane and degrading treatments that is leaving them in deep agony. That is, long after the deadly shootings that soldiers unleashed on them to disrupt their prison riot. Several inmates were reported shot dead although the minister of communication since claimed no one died in both the Buea and Yaounde peaceful prison protests that went wrong. Their family members and lawyers are not allowed to meet the inmates, many of whose gapping wounds are rottenly smelly.
Now, the team of lawyers who are defending hundreds of Anglophone inmates arrested over the Ambazonia Republic struggle are demanding the production of at least four bodies of inmates whose deaths have been ascertained. One of the corpses is reportedly in the Buea Regional Hospital mortuary.
In Yaounde, other inmates are still nursing wounds on their heads, mouths, limbs and other body parts following severe torture inflicted on them following their protest action that went wrong and triggered the Buea prison protest version. Akwo Platini Anga for example had two of his teeth knocked out reportedly from punch by a francophone detainee.
The anglophone detainees believe francophone detainees have been engineered to brutalize them – an allegation that warrants serious investigations. Barrister Njong Henry Tita, leader of a battery of lawyers defending Southern Cameroonian detainees in the southwest region has petitioned Procureur General about the deaths and gruesome torture of inmates following the Buea prison protest.
Barrister Njong Henry Petitions PG
In a letter to the procureur general of the southwest region, he is informed of the existence of a Pro Bono Team of lawyers who have put their services to render legal assistance and counselling to persons affected by the war raging on between the pro-independence fighters and security forces of the republic of Cameroon.
“The petition signed by Barrister Njong Henry Tita Esq. states that they particularly concerned with those incarcerated in the prisons awaiting trial and/or standing trials before the lawcourts. The lawyers express the wish to have unfettered access to their clients who are under the institutions of the procurer general.
Then in a related complaint, titled “Blood-curdling and excruciating torture on the anglophone victims or persons incarcerated in the Buea Central Prisons, the lawyers alert the PG on the unpalatable circumstances surrounding the plight of the inmates during and after the July 23, prison protest that was crushed by the military.
“…the we have compelling evidence that the military were led into the prison and shot indiscriminately at the detainees killing four (4) and wounding over 75 of them who are presumably lying sick in the prison yard with smelling wounds” the petition states.
“And also that some 60 of these detainees were summed into one room known as the ‘solitary’ cell for close to 10 days until many of them collapsed and suffered from severs death threat before they were transferred into ordinary cells.
And that after getting these evidence we approached the prisons authority to allow us unfettered access to see and discuss with our clients which has been turned down with the reason that they re undergoing punishment, giving us more reason to believe our investigations. This is more so because it is unusual for lawyers to be refused access to their clients except the authority has something to hide from them”.
In the light of the above these facts, the lawyers are requesting the regional legal department boss to compel the prison authorities to give them unfettered access to determine the state of health of their clients.
Meanwhile, the Lawyer Njong led five lawyers in search of some of the detainees who were taken to unknown destinations, in vain. The lawyers are further irked by reports that the detainees were crammed into a tiny, poorly ventilated room with ankle deep water for days.