One protester was killed in Cameroon as police and gendarmes put down protests against Cameroonian President Paul Biya, the country’s main opposition party said on Tuesday, while accusing security forces of laying siege to their leader’s home.
Police and gendarmes fired tear gas and water cannons to break up protests in Douala, calling for an end to Biya’s near 40-year rule, witnesses told reporters.
The rally was called by 87-year-old Biya’s closest rival, Maurice Kamto, of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), who hopes to spark a popular revolt as seen in other African nations such as Mali and Burkina Faso.
Photo: AFP
Kamto’s home was in a “state of siege,” surrounded by tanks and heavily armed gendarmes, CRM senior member Joseph Ateba said.
Hundreds of people have been arrested across the country, including CRM treasurer Alain Fogue and Kamto’s spokesman, Olivier Bibou Nissack, Ateba said.
“He is accused of rebellion and hostility to the homeland, among other things,” said Jeanne Edith Bibou, Nissack’s wife.
The police referred requests for comment to the Cameroonian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, which could not be immediately reached.
Security forces had packed the streets of Cameroon’s largest cities, including the capital Yaounde, in recent days in anticipation of the demonstrations, raising concern among residents of a return to the kind of violent crackdowns on protests over the past few years.
Hundreds of people gathered in the Ndokoti commercial district of Douala chanting: “Biya must go.”
Police, who camped out in trucks at major intersections, chased some of the protesters across the neighborhood and into their houses, witnesses said.
Long a bastion of calm in a turbulent region, Cameroon has descended into chaos over the past few years as Biya fights Islamist insurgents in its far north and separatist rebels in the west.
Biya is also under pressure from political advocates in urban centers who want change, saying that he has stolen elections and is the mastermind of a series of deadly backlashes against those who oppose him.
The government denies those charges.
Biya won a 2018 election that Kamto said was fraudulent.
Kamto was jailed for nine months last year on insurrection charges following a protest.
He was later pardoned, but his arrest galvanized the opposition and has led to protests ever since.
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