Neocolonialism spurs ongoing crisis in Cameroon
By Joe Tache
Soldiers in Bamenda. Public domain image.
In October 2019, Nebane Abienwi, a 37-year-old Cameroonian man, died in ICE custody in San Diego. Abienwi was one of at least 10,000 Cameroonians seeking asylum in the United States. The recent increase in Africans being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border is largely a result of this exodus of people from Cameroon.
Many factors are causing heightened emigration from Cameroon, perhaps the primary one being the “Anglophone crisis.” Since 2016, there has been significant unrest and government repression in the western English-speaking (Anglophone) regions of Cameroon. Much of the media coverage has depicted protesters in the western regions as fighting to defend their “Anglo-Saxon heritage.”
Of course, Cameroon is a W...