UN rights chief calls for access to Cameroon's Anglophone regions

8/8/2024 16:30

        The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights requested on Wednesday better access to Cameroon's restive separatist regions and called for revisions to an anti-terror law that rights groups say has been used to silent dissent.
        
        Factions of secessionist militias have been battling government troops in Cameroon's two English-speaking regions since 2017, leading to thousands of deaths and displacing nearly 800,000 people.
        
        "I have called on the government to facilitate humanitarian access to areas affected by conflict," Volker Turk said after a two-day visit to the Central African country.
        
        "I have also urged the government to revise the 2014 anti-terrorism law in this regard," he said.
        
        Amnesty International has described that law, which mandates the death penalty, as repressive and says it curtails rights protected in Cameroon's constitution.