Arrested Gender Activist Released From Detention

 By Akem Ayuk

A prominent Limbe based gender activist has been released from detention, three days after she was arrested by Cameroonian soldiers.

Joana Eneke Enowmbi, who is Gender Officer and a field coordinator at the Limbe-based Denis Miki Foundation, a Non-governmental organization, in the South West Region of Cameroon, was arrested in the night of Saturday December 10, 2022.  She was preparing to return from one of her field trips that was aimed at investigating cases of alleged rape on internally displaced women and girls of the Anglophone war in a locality around Buea subdivision. She is said to have been picked up in a local motel where she and her colleagues were having a rest.

One of her colleagues who volunteers with the organization, Belinda Etude Etuge, recounted how she was picked up, after Cameroonian soldiers knocked at their hotel room at about 10 pm and asked for their leader.

“When the soldiers knocked at the door and asked who our leader was, Joan indicated she was. The soldiers asked her to hand over her recorder, cell phone and camera. One of the soldiers was saying that Joana and our NGO had been reporting about military abuses on the population and that we were giving separatist fighters information about their movements. They did not allow any of us to speak and just took Joan away. They even warned us not to inform anybody of what had happened. I was panic-stricken,” she said.

Immediately after taking Joana Eneke Enowmbi to an unknown destination, Belinda Etude Etuge said she and her other colleague in, fear moved to another motel. News of Joana’s arrest spread like wildfire especially as her whereabouts were not know. She was popular because she used to join other women in organizing protests demonstrations gender-based violence and abuses perpetrated by belligerents- the Cameroon army and the separatists’ fighters in the Anglophone crisis. It was only on Monday December 12 that Joana Eneke Enowmbi was released from detention.

The Program’s Officer at Denis Miki Foundation, Ntui Miriam Agbor, confirmed her arrest and release, remained very worried about the safety of gender activists and humanitarian workers in the two English speaking regions of the country hit by the conflict.

“I can confirm that she has been released after the intervention of our legal team and apparently because the media had picked up the story. I am told Joana and our foundation is accused of reporting about rape committed by soldiers especially the incident in Ebam, a small community in Manyu Division in the South West of Cameroon. They don’t want us to report about human rights abuses being committed. Joana is still receiving treatment as I speak, from the torture she was subjected to. Our foundation will certainly do an assessment of the whole situation and if possible, drag those responsible for her arrest and torture to court. This does not stop us from doing our job as humanitarian workers. We however remain very cautious,” Ntui Miriam Agbor said.

 Joan and Colleagues, Demanding Gender Justice

Joana Eneke Enowmbi is just one of the victims arrested and tortured or threatened in the course of her duty. Since the escalation of the Anglophone conflict in 2016, hospital staffs, journalists, activists, humanitarian workers have been victims of abuses both from separatists and especially Cameroonian soldiers. In May 2022, Akem Kelvin Nkwain, a human rights officer at the Center for Human Rights and Democracy, CHRDA, received several death threats because he reporting violations committed by separatists. Same threats were made on cyber activist Nzui Manto when he reported about abuses committed by Cameroon soldiers on the local population in the Southwest and Northwest regions. Nzui was forced to escape from Cameroon for fear of been killed. In 2021, The Cameroon government had even arrested and detained Medicine Sans Frontier, MSF, workers accusing them of assisting and providing medical care to separatist fighters. 

The arrest of Joana Eneke Enowmbi has made many humanitarian workers and other activists, not to venture into investigating and reporting abuses. Others have simply gone into hiding or abandoned their jobs for fear of their lives.