(Business in Cameroon) - In a report it just published, the national human rights commission in Cameroon revealed that since 2017 more than 5,000 hostage victims have been recorded across the country. This translates into a serious violation of the right to life as well as physical and moral integrity to which citizens are exposed.

Main regions within which the phenomenon started are the Far North, North, Adamaoua and East regions before spreading to the North-West and South-West. Hostage-taking implies kidnappings followed by demands for ransom which, in case of dissatisfaction, exposed the victims to death.

In response to the resurgence of hostage-takings, the government has implemented control strategies that have freed hundreds of victims, and arrested and sued perpetrators before the courts. 177 persons have been prosecuted for the acts of arrest and sequestration, kidnapping of minors with fraud or violence resulting from these hostage-takings. Sentences were handed down against 06 defendants and the heaviest sentence was 03 years imprisonment.

According to the Mboscuda Association, which includes the nomadic community Mbororos, between 2015 and 2018, Cameroonian herders in Adamaoua paid ransoms of more than XAF2 billion to hostage takers.

S.A