A total of 3,870 armed separatists and Boko Haram fighters have laid down weapons in Cameroon in the past five years, according to an official of the country’s National Committee on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (NCDDR).
Many of the ex-fighters have been reintegrated into society and several communities are accepting them, said Francis Fai Yengo, national coordinator of NCDDR, during a meeting held Wednesday in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, to validate a new manual procedure of the NCDDR centers.
“NCDDR is a process. There is a lot of work to be done. So this is one of the guidelines that will help us to go on the field,” Yengo told reporters, referring to the working document. “The participation of the NCDDR in the general peace efforts is challenging but yielding successes.”
Officials said, despite multiple security efforts, there are still “pockets of violence” in the country’s English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest where separatists want to create an independent nation.
In the country’s Far North region, growing regional military pressure has subdued Boko Haram insurgency but “a few militants” continue to kidnap and kill civilians and soldiers, according to security reports.
The NCDDR was created in 2018 by a presidential decree “to avoid the use of extreme measures” in violence-hit regions of the Central African nation and supervise and manage the disarmament and reintegration of ex-combatants.
