Amnesty International said that more than 1,000 people accused of supporting Boko Haram in Cameroon are being detained in military bases and prisons often without any evidence.
Amnesty Researcher, Ilaria Allegrozzi, said on Thursday during a report presentation in Nairobi that dozens are dying from diseases, malnutrition and torture.
She said that since a regional offensive last year drove Boko Haram from most of their strongholds, the Islamist militants have waged a guerrilla-style campaign targeting civilians.
“In Cameroon, teenage girls have killed dozens in suicide bombings carried out by the group.
Allegrozzi said that investigation revealed that a crackdown by the government and security forces on the Islamist militants has fuelled the widespread abuse of civilians across Cameroon’s Far North region.
“We are not necessarily talking about Boko Haram fighters, but about normal people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“In the fight against Boko Haram, innocent people are paying the price,” she said.
Allegrozzi accuses the authority of holding many people at illegal detention sites in military bases run by Cameroonian troops before being transferred to official prisons.
She said during the investigation, several detainees in the military bases told Amnesty that they were tortured and beaten with sticks, whips and machetes, sometimes until they lost consciousness.
Allegrozzi quoted a 70-year-old man as saying that “Two prisoners were beaten up so badly that they died in front of us.
“The men kicked them, slapped them violently, and hit them with wooden sticks,” he said.
She disclosed that in the main prison in Maroua, the capital of the Far North region, between six and eight people die every month in dirty and overcrowded cells where malnutrition is rife.
Allegrozzi said further that detainees suspected of supporting Boko Haram who are brought to trial risk being convicted and sentenced to death, despite there often being little or no evidence.
Another group “Right Cause, Wrong Means” said in its report that more than 100 people have been sentenced to death in Maroua’s military court since July 2015, although none have yet been executed.
The Amnesty said that most defendants are charged under an anti-terrorism law passed in 2014, which is ambiguous and vague.
It said that a 27-year-old who was arrested after sending a text message to his friends, joking about Boko Haram recruiting graduates, could face the death penalty.
“If a student can face the death penalty for sending a sarcastic text message, it is clear that there is a serious problem with the design and use of Cameroon’s anti-terrorist legislation.
It said in the seven years of Boko Haram, more than 15,000 people have been killed and 2.4 million uprooted in Nigeria and neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
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