Is The Cameroon Ceasefire Talk Nearing Amid Covid-19 Pandemic?

Is The Cameroon Ceasefire Talk Nearing Amid Covid-19 Pandemic?

On June 22, 2020, a group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, former heads of state and human rights experts issued a join call for a ceasefire in Cameroon. The ceasefire is essential to provide space to medical professionals and to assist those in need amid Covid-19 pandemic. Cameroon has one of the highest rates of Covid-19 infection in Africa. As a result, civilians are caught between conflict and pandemic.









A poster tribute on the side of the former home of a woman killed in crossfire between Cameroon ... [+] government forces and armed Anglophone separatists in Buea, Cameroon. (May 12, 2019) (Photo credit: Giles Clarke/UNOCHA via Getty Images)



UNOCHA via Getty Images



The ongoing conflict in Cameroon, the Anglophone crisis, began in 2016. It is grounded in long-standing and unresolved political, economic, and social marginalization issues in the Anglophone minority community that inhabit southern Cameroon. The Anglophone community constitutes approximately 20% of the country's population, with the remaining 80% being Francophones. In 2016, Anglophone lawyers and teachers took to the streets in protest against the Government's appointment of French-language judges and teachers, and the introduction of French-language procedures, in Anglophone-region courts and schools. The