Cameroon detains 84 children after raiding Quranic schools

Share:

Cameroonian authorities have been holding 84 children — some as young as 5 years old — for months without charge after officials accused their teachers at Quranic schools of running terrorist training camps, Amnesty International said Friday.

The international human rights organization called on Cameroon to release the children to their parents immediately, saying nearly all of them are too young to face criminal charges. The raids in the country’s far north are part of the fight against Islamic militants from the Nigeria-based group Boko Haram.

“Detaining young children will do nothing to protect Cameroonians living under the threat of Boko Haram,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International deputy regional director for West and Central Africa.

A government spokesman did not immediately respond to the report and said a news conference would be held Monday.

Boko Haram has waged a six-year insurgency seeking to implement an Islamic caliphate. In recent months, militants have stepped up attacks inside neighboring countries.

Cameroonian forces arrested the 84 children in December along with 43 men in the northern town of Guirvidig, accusing the teachers of using the schools “as fronts for Boko Haram training camps,” Amnesty said.

“They said they would dig our grave and throw us into it. We were scared,” one child told Amnesty. “Then they roughed up our teachers . some among them had blood all over their faces.”

Food is now running low at the center where the children have been detained in the northern town of Maroua, Amnesty said.

Cameroon is struggling to keep people in the far north from joining Boko Haram. Earlier this week, Cameroon assembled all its Muslim leaders in the capital, Yaounde, to teach them how to identify and denounce promoters of Islamic State ideology.

 

Associated Press/ My Way

Share:

Comments

12 responses to “Cameroon detains 84 children after raiding Quranic schools”

  1. Christian values at work again. Imagine if Israel had kidnapped these children. Bunch of hypocrites

  2. Yep not a word from some so called Christians.

  3. Rwandan spy chief Karenzi Karake arrested in London http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33230130

    1. 6 days later and look what Christian values this Christian displays. One can bet their bottom dollar that this Christian’s comment would be completely different if the victims were Christian. Your prejudice is clearly obvious.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Well, you wanted us to say something … but after all the years of saying something about many Africans, with little success, we now have Middle Easterners to punt at instead … with little success there either, ti seems …. so, gimme that good ol’ rock n roll.
        The bad part is that now they getting hungry … can’t do much about that either.
        Anyone find all the kidnapped girls yet?
        Nope. So …

        1. Thank you for proving your hypocrisy. I can’t thank you enough. That was priceless

          1. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Go have a chat with Idi Amin DADA … a real winner there. ;-))

          2. Yes coz idi abducted those 74 children.

          3. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            (wow .. numbers change fast …)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *