The Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime is doubling down on executions of Southern Cameroons detainees in the Kondengui High Security prison in Yaoundé following a massive riot staged by the Ambazonians in the facility. Cameroon Intelligence Report understands French Cameroun military judges are presently accelerating the pace they issue life and death sentences.

A senior Francophone army officer who spoke to our Yaounde city reporter on the condition that his full names should not be disclosed out of fear for his family safety hinted that Yaounde was instituting a campaign to clear the decks of Southern Cameroons detainees in Douala New Bell prison, Baffoussam and in Kondengui. He revealed that Southern Cameroons prisoners of war are being transferred from jails in Buea and Bamenda to join death-row detainees in Yaounde and Douala.

We gathered from other prison administrators that at least one section of the Kondengui prison that harbored Ambazonian detainees is almost entirely empty. Some of the former detainees en route to Douala and Yaounde from Bamenda escaped that fate only after relatives paid hundreds of thousands of FCFA to secure their freedom.

A Roman Catholic priest in Buea described overhearing conversations between Buea prisons guards relating to the transfer of Southern Cameroons detainees to be killed. Human Rights groups say the rate of death sentences on Southern Cameroonians has sped up over the past three years as the attitudes of Francophone court officials hardened.

There is no room for leniency as almost every Southern Cameroons detainee will now face the death penalty. Many Ambazonian prisoners have died of malnutrition, medical neglect or physical abuse. The so-called Prime Minister Dion Ngute government did not respond to requests for comment for this report. The Francophone dominated Biya government has never acknowledged the execution of prisoners or released figures of Southern Cameroons detainees.  No independent figures are available even from the Ambazonian Interim Government now led by Vice President Dabney Yerima.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai