Demonstrations against forced disappearances

Police in Cameroon’s commercial capital, Douala, dispersed demonstrators on Sunday and Monday as opposition politicians and neighbourhood residents continued protests against the disappearance of nine youths from the city’s Bepanda neighbourhood, news organisations reported.

AFP reported that, on Monday, police used water cannons to disperse protesters, who included about 20 of the 43 parliamentarians from the opposition Social democratic front (SDF), along with SDF mayors and Bepanda residents. Twenty people, including four police officers, had been injured on Sunday when security forces attempted to break up a similar demonstration.

Ten people, including opposition leader Albert Dzongang, were also called in for questioning, AFP reported.

The demonstrators are being organised to press the government into solving the case of nine youths who went missing on 28 February, after the Commandement Operationel, a special crime-fighting unit, arrested them on suspicion of stealing a gas cannister. Relatives have vowed to stage rallies every Sunday until the truth is known. On Wednesday, political activists and human rights advocates established a commission of inquiry, independent of one set up a week earlier by President Paul Biya, to look into the disappearances.

A Cameroonian organisation known as L’Action des chretiens contre la torture said on 2 March that the youths were killed with acid, along with 41 others.