Nobel Prize Laureates call for Cameroon Ceasefire

A group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates has urged the government of Cameroon and separatist rebel forces to hold a ceasefire in Cameroon’s western regions while health workers battle the coronavirus pandemic.

The Global Campaign for Peace and Justice in Cameroon called on the international communities of Commonwealth and Francophone countries to urge the West African nation to hold a “Covid-19 ceasefire”.

Among the seven Nobel Prize laureates and former heads of state include former president of South Africa F. W. de Klerk, 2018 laureate Dr Denis Mukwege, and three former United States ambassadors.

Dr Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, called the conflict in Cameroon in a press statement, “one of the great neglected conflict of our times”.

"While people in West Africa and in Cameroon are very aware of the suffering and hardship that has been endured for such a long time, it's to the discredit of the United Nations Security Council that it has not formally addressed the conflict there and it has not been covered widely in the media."

"We signed the declaration because we want to see more international attention brought to what is one of the most devastating conflicts affecting Western Africa at the moment," Dr. Simon added.

The conflict in Cameroon initially broke out in 2016 between separatists from the two English-speaking regions on the Nigerian border and the Francophone government. Rebel fighters have long been calling for regional independence on the grounds of marginalisation in government policy.

In four years, over 3,000 people have been killed and half a million civilians have fled their homes.

Now, with the outbreak of coronavirus in the region, hospital services and health workers are more stretched than ever before, leading internationally recognised peace builders to call for a pause in the fighting.

Photo: VOA