There has been massive condemnation in Cameroon after the central African state’s military bowed to pressure from rights groups and journalists Friday and issued a statement that missing Cameroonian journalist Samule Ajiekah Wazizi died in a military hospital 10 months ago.
Wazizi was arrested for collaborating with separatists fighting to create an English-speaking state in the majority-French Cameroon and had not been seen in public since.
Jude Viban, the Yaoundé-based national president of theCameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists says he is scandalized that it was only after pressure from journalists, civil society groups and the international community that Cameroon’s military finally issued a statement that journalist Samuel Wazizihad died in a Yaoundé military hospital.
« We are now calling for an independent inquiry, which will involve an autopsy, so that we can know exactly if the cause of death stated by the Ministry of Defense is exact, » Viban said.
« Right now, we want to see the corpse of Samuel Wazizi. » The military said in its statement Friday that Wazizi,who was arrested August 2 in the English-speaking southwestern town of Buea for complicity in acts of terrorism, died on August 17. The statement said when the military transferred Wazizi from Buea to Yaoundéfor further investigation, he became ill and was rushed to the Yaoundé military hospital, where he died.
The statement further indicates that Wazizi, while indetention and before he died, communicated with his family and had access to his lawyers, and that Wazizi Family was informed of his death.
