25/03/2026
On March 3, a 23 year old motorcycle taxi rider named Tih Akumbu Joseph left Babanki-Ketingoh in Tubah Subdivision carrying vegetables and tomatoes toward Bamenda.
At the Banshe entrance checkpoint, eyewitnesses say gendarmes (state security forces) demanded an informal payment. When he refused, he was loaded into a pickup vehicle and driven away. Neither he, his motorcycle, nor his goods have been seen since.
His family searched detention centers.Formal complaints were filed. Silence followed.
Conscience Africaine North West & Littoral Regions-Cameroon, a Cameroonian human rights NGO that monitors violations across the Anglophone regions, has condemned the incident as an enforced disappearance.
Based on eyewitness accounts, executive secretary Amadu Tarnteh is demanding an immediate and independent investigation, Joseph's safe release if alive, and accountability under both national and international law.
The NGO also renewed its call for genuine, inclusive dialogue to address the root causes of a crisis now entering its tenth year.
Joseph's case is far from exceptional. Conscience Africaine's 2025 annual report documented 135 credible human rights incidents across the Northwest and Southwest regions alone, covering killings, arbitrary detentions, abductions, and torture.
A young man disappears at a checkpoint while carrying tomatoes. What does accountability look like in a conflict where impunity has become the rule rather than the exception?
Source: Berinyuy Cajetan, HRLRC (Human Rights and Legal Research Centre), March 2026
