Cameroon jails three soldiers involved in killing 21 civilians in 2020

Cameroon has handed jail terms to three soldiers found guilty of involvement in the killing of 21 civilians in 2020 unrest in the country's English-speaking northwest, victims' lawyers said on Friday.

The lawyers said a military court in Yaounde handed down the sentences on Thursday in connection with violence in February 2020 which Human Right Watch said saw government troops and ethnic Fulani militia raid the village of Ngarbuh and kill "at least" 21 civilians.

Thirteen of the dead caught up in separatist unrest were children and one was a pregnant woman, according to the rights group. The instigators set fire to five houses and carried out looting and assaults on residents, HRW said in a statement released the week following the violence.

The government had initially rejected the thesis that its troops had deliberately participated in the violence, as well as HRW's deaths tally. However, Yaounde ultimately opened a legal case, paving the way to a what is a rare conviction of military personnel.

"Sergeant Baba Guida was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. Gendarme Haranga Gilbert was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Corporal Sanding Sanding was sentenced to five years' imprisonment," the victims' lawyers stated.

The events occurred during a military operation in a village in the North-West, one of Cameroon's two English-speaking regions which has suffered almost a decade of armed violence following attempts to secede from the rest of Cameroon.

Conflict erupted in late 2016 after President Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for more than 42 years, violently put down peaceful demonstrations by English speakers who felt marginalised in what is a mainly French-speaking country.

At least 6,000 civilians have been killed by government forces and separatist fighters since the conflict began, according to HRW.