"Cameroonians will elect a new president on Sunday. But in the restive North West and South West regions, many are torn between civic duty and safety concerns. Bamenda, Cameroon On the day of Cameroon's last presidential election in October 2018, then-16-year-old Annie Nsalla* watched from her sitting-room window as Anglophone separatist fighters wreaked havoc in the streets of Bamenda, firing gunshots and threatening voters to deter them from reaching polling stations."
"I am not doing anything wrong. I want to vote, the 23-year-old told Al Jazeera, but I do not know if I will vote, she admitted, fearing a repeat of 2018. We live in constant fear that something will happen on that day, Nsalla said. We feel like we have restrictions from both parties. On one hand, there is the lack of security guarantee from government forces to move around, and on the other hand, Amba boys [a local name for separatist fighters] threaten us."
Cameroon will elect a new president on Sunday, but many citizens in the Anglophone North West and South West regions face safety fears that complicate participation. Armed conflict erupted in the English-speaking regions in 2016 and escalated before the 2018 presidential vote, when separatist fighters disrupted polling in Bamenda with gunfire and threats. Annie Nsalla witnessed the 2018 violence, lost relatives during the conflict, registered to vote in July, and remains uncertain about voting due to fears of renewed violence and restrictions imposed by both government forces and separatist "Amba boys."
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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