An Academic Perspective on the Humanitarian, Judicial, Economic and Political Consequences of the Crisis
As Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict approaches its tenth anniversary in November 2026, the continuing devastation in the North-West and South-West regions stands as one of the most troubling failures of constitutional governance, human rights protection and conflict resolution in contemporary Africa. What began in 2016 as peaceful protests by Anglophone lawyers and teachers against the perceived erosion of the common-law and English-language educational systems has developed into a prolonged armed conflict between government security forces and separatist armed groups. Its origins cannot be divorced from the historical dismantling of the federal constitutional settlement, political marginalisation, centralisation of executive authority and progressive weakening of institutional safeguards for Anglophone identity. In my doctoral thesis, In what ways do political factors and relations of power interfere with the legal protection of human rights in Cameroon? (University of Plymouth, 2026), I examined how political power, neopatrimonial governance and institutional arrangements can obstruct meaningful legal protection, using the Anglophone conflict as a central case study. The fundamental argument remains relevant: constitutional guarantees and international human rights commitments do not necessarily translate into effective protection when political imperatives outweigh legal obligations. Nearly a decade of violence demonstrates that the crisis cannot be resolved through military operations, symbolic reforms or appeals to national unity alone. It requires confronting the underlying distribution of political power, the failure of accountable governance and the systematic erosion of public confidence in state institutions. The Anglophone conflict is therefore not simply a security emergency; it is a profound crisis of constitutional legitimacy, human dignity and the relationship between citizens and the state.
The most devastating consequence of the conflict is the extraordinary loss of civilian life, particularly the killing and serious victimisation of women and children, whose suffering exposes the inadequacy of existing protection mechanisms. Human Rights Watch reported in its World Report 2024 that at least 6,000 civilians had been killed since the outbreak of violence in late 2016. That historical estimate should not be mistaken for a verified cumulative total as of October 2026, nor does the available reporting establish a reliable, comprehensive breakdown of deaths by age and sex. Nevertheless, documented atrocities demonstrate the gravity of the humanitarian catastrophe. The Ngarbuh massacre of 14 February 2020, in which government soldiers and allied armed men killed at least 21 civilians, including 13 children and a pregnant woman, remains a particularly disturbing illustration. The October 2020 attack on a school in Kumba, where at least eight children were reportedly killed, similarly demonstrated the vulnerability of children within spaces that should enjoy special protection. These incidents are not isolated from the wider pattern of unlawful killings, abductions, torture, attacks on civilians and destruction of homes attributed to different parties to the conflict. Government security forces must protect civilians and investigate alleged violations committed by their personnel. At the same time, separatist armed groups are likewise prohibited from deliberately targeting civilians, taking hostages and carrying out other serious abuses. The legal and moral responsibility of each actor must be determined by its conduct, not by narratives of collective blame. Ultimately, every civilian death represents not merely a statistic but the irreversible destruction of human relationships, familial security and community life. The lack of comprehensive, independently verified casualty documentation also risks obscuring the true scale of the conflict’s human cost.
The consequences for women and girls extend far beyond fatalities and physical injuries, encompassing sexual violence, displacement, economic deprivation, reproductive-health emergencies, forced dependency and profound psychological trauma. In conflict-affected communities, women frequently shoulder disproportionate caregiving responsibilities while confronting restricted movement, insecurity, declining household income and the breakdown of essential public services. Widows and displaced mothers may become sole providers when agricultural production, local markets, and community support networks have deteriorated. Girls face heightened risks of sexual exploitation, early marriage, interrupted schooling and long-term exclusion from economic opportunity. Particularly troubling is the gap between the formal prohibition of sexual violence and the practical availability of protection, medical care and legal redress. A March 2026 assessment reported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that, among 29 sexual and reproductive health partners assessed in the North-West and South-West regions, only eight had post-exposure prophylaxis kits, highlighting serious shortcomings in the clinical management of rape. Human Rights Watch’s 2026 research into violence against women in Cameroon further illustrates how economic inequality, discriminatory social practices and inadequate institutional responses can obstruct protection and accountability. These findings expose the intersection between conflict-related insecurity and pre-existing structural gender inequalities. The Anglophone crisis must therefore be examined through a gender-sensitive human rights framework that recognises women not merely as victims requiring humanitarian assistance but as rights-holders entitled to security, justice, participation and economic independence. Any peacebuilding initiative that marginalises women’s experiences or excludes them from decision-making risks reproducing the very inequalities that have compounded their vulnerability.
For children, the Anglophone conflict has become a prolonged assault on the foundations of childhood itself. Beyond those killed or injured, countless children have experienced displacement, family separation, exposure to violence, psychological distress and sustained interruptions to formal education. Some have grown up knowing insecurity as an ordinary feature of daily life rather than an exceptional condition. Attacks on educational institutions, threats against teachers, separatist-imposed school boycotts and repeated lockdowns have undermined children’s rights to education, development and protection. UNICEF reported in May 2025 that 41 per cent of schools in the North-West and South-West were non-operational in 2024, and recorded 43 attacks on education that year. Although UNICEF subsequently documented progress in reopening schools, its September 2025 reporting still identified 2,463 schools closed across the two regions. Such figures reveal both the possibility of recovery and the persistence of serious educational deprivation. The consequences are cumulative: interrupted schooling reduces literacy, professional opportunities, social mobility and the development of future civic leadership. Girls face additional barriers, including early pregnancy, child marriage and gendered expectations that make returning to education more difficult. Empirical research by Galindo-Silva and Tchuente (2023) also associates conflict-related violence with declining educational performance and teacher absenteeism. Viewed through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, these developments represent more than unfortunate collateral effects of war. They raise fundamental questions about whether the state and other responsible actors are fulfilling their obligations to protect children from violence and safeguard their development. A society that lets an entire generation grow up without reliable access to education risks turning a present security crisis into a future developmental and institutional crisis.
The judicial consequences of the conflict are equally profound, revealing an increasingly dangerous gap between the legal recognition of human rights and their effective enforcement. Allegations of arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention, torture, extrajudicial killings and restrictions on fundamental freedoms have raised serious concerns about due process, judicial independence and the availability of effective remedies. Particularly troubling is the perception that the administration of justice has too often been subordinated to security considerations and politically sensitive objectives. The prosecution of those responsible for the Ngarbuh massacre illustrates the difficulties of achieving meaningful accountability. In February 2026, a Cameroonian military court convicted three soldiers and a pro-government militiaman, imposing sentences ranging from five to ten years. Human Rights Watch criticised the proceedings for failing to adequately investigate command responsibility, secure meaningful victim participation, or award reparations. Although the convictions represented judicial action, they also showed the limits of accountability processes that do not fully examine responsibility across the chain of command. The broader conflict raises questions under Article 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the protections afforded to civilians under international humanitarian law. Where the legal requirements of a non-international armed conflict are satisfied, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and applicable customary rules prohibit murder, torture, cruel treatment and hostage-taking. Accountability must apply impartially to serious violations committed by state personnel and separatist fighters. Justice cannot be credible if prosecutorial priorities are shaped by political allegiance, military affiliation, or victims’ identities. Without independent investigations, fair proceedings, effective remedies and reparations, the justice system risks reinforcing public perceptions of institutional partiality rather than rebuilding confidence in the rule of law.
Beyond individual abuses, the crisis has exposed deeper structural weaknesses within Cameroon’s judicial system, particularly the relationship between jurisdiction, institutional authority and the effective protection of fundamental rights. In my article, Jurisdiction, Power and the Denial of Justice: The Impact of Jurisdictional Incompetence on Fair Trial Rights in Cameroon (Agbor, 2026), I argue that procedural rules concerning jurisdiction, although essential to the orderly administration of justice, may become obstacles to substantive justice when applied excessively, inconsistently or within politically constrained institutions. Repeated jurisdictional disputes, procedural delays, restrictive interpretations of judicial competence, and the involvement of military tribunals in civilian proceedings raise important questions about access to independent and impartial adjudication. These concerns become particularly acute in conflict situations, where individuals may already face displacement, restricted legal representation, financial hardship and fear of retaliation. The original grievances of Anglophone lawyers in 2016 also highlight the importance of protecting Cameroon’s common-law tradition against institutional practices perceived as undermining its distinct legal character. The consequences extend beyond individual litigants: when the judiciary cannot provide timely, impartial remedies, citizens may increasingly see political mobilisation or extra-legal resistance as the only available means of contesting state authority. Such institutional deterioration weakens the legal system’s legitimacy and threatens constitutional stability. Rebuilding judicial confidence therefore requires strengthening judicial independence, reviewing military courts’ jurisdiction over civilians, improving procedural safeguards, ensuring access to legal assistance, and protecting the institutional integrity of the common-law system. Judicial reform must be understood not as a secondary consequence of peacebuilding but as an indispensable foundation.
Economically, the Anglophone conflict has produced a sustained deterioration of productive capacity, household resilience and regional development. Years of insecurity, repeated lockdowns, abductions, illegal checkpoints, destruction of property and population displacement have disrupted agricultural production, local commerce, transport networks, tourism, education and investment. The North-West and South-West regions have significant agricultural and commercial potential, including cocoa, coffee, food production, and plantation agriculture. Yet ongoing uncertainty about personal security and commercial operations discourages investment, raises transaction costs, and limits employment opportunities. In its April–June 2026 situation report, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented more than 1,200 protection incidents and reported that nearly 4,000 people were displaced in a single month between April and May. The report also identified disruptions to agricultural production, market functioning and essential services. Such conditions contribute to a destructive cycle in which insecurity generates poverty, poverty increases vulnerability, and prolonged economic exclusion undermines prospects for sustainable peace. The burden falls particularly heavily on women, displaced households, small-scale traders, farmers and young people entering an already constrained labour market. Kidnapping for ransom has further transformed insecurity into an economy of coercion, imposing direct financial losses on households while discouraging movement and productive activity. These regional consequences must be distinguished from Cameroon’s wider macroeconomic difficulties, although the World Bank also identifies internal conflict and governance weaknesses among the constraints on national growth. The true economic cost of the Anglophone crisis cannot be measured solely through lost output or damaged infrastructure; it includes diminished human capital, disrupted childhoods, forgone educational attainment, deteriorating health and the long-term erosion of confidence in public and economic institutions.
Politically, the conflict demonstrates the consequences of a governance system in which constitutional commitments to democracy, equality and participation coexist with highly concentrated political power and limited institutional accountability. In Cameroon in Context: Rethinking Democracy in Central and West Africa (Agbor, 2026), I situate Cameroon’s democratic challenges within the historical and regional dynamics of authoritarian resilience, neopatrimonial political structures and the limitations of formal institutional reform. My subsequent article, Democracy Without Rights? Constitutionalism, Political Power and Human Rights Protection in Cameroon and Central Africa (Agbor, 2026), further challenges the assumption that elections and constitutional declarations alone can establish democratic legitimacy without effective rights protection, political pluralism, and accountable institutions. The Anglophone conflict offers a particularly compelling illustration of these arguments. The government’s 2019 Major National Dialogue and the introduction of special status for the North-West and South-West regions represented formal attempts to address Anglophone concerns. Still, their capacity to resolve the crisis remains contested. Constitutional scholars, including Charles Manga Fombad (2025), have questioned whether the special-status framework adequately addresses the historical and institutional foundations of Anglophone marginalisation. More fundamentally, a durable settlement cannot emerge from a political process that excludes substantive constitutional questions from meaningful public deliberation. Federalism, enhanced regional autonomy, decentralisation, constitutional safeguards and competing claims concerning self-determination must be examined through peaceful, inclusive and legally informed dialogue. Recognising grievances does not require endorsing violence or predetermining the constitutional outcome. Rather, it requires accepting that durable national unity must rest upon consent, equal citizenship, meaningful participation and respect for institutional diversity. Political stability achieved through coercion may suppress immediate dissent, but it cannot substitute for legitimate constitutional accommodation.
The response of the international community has been characterised by a troubling imbalance between humanitarian concern and sustained political action. The United Nations, humanitarian agencies, international civil society organisations and several donor governments have provided assistance, documented violations and condemned serious abuses. These contributions should not be dismissed. Nevertheless, the conflict’s longevity, continued civilian suffering, and repeated collapse of diplomatic initiatives raise legitimate questions about the adequacy of international engagement. Switzerland’s mediation initiative between 2019 and 2022 failed to produce a negotiated settlement, while Canada’s announcement of a prospective peace facilitation process in January 2023 was publicly rejected by the Cameroonian government shortly afterwards. These failures show both the importance of domestic political commitment and the limits of external diplomacy when engagement lacks a coherent framework to overcome political obstruction. Given their normative commitments to democracy, human rights, and peaceful conflict resolution, the Commonwealth and African Union have particular institutional and moral responsibilities to contribute more decisively to de-escalation, dialogue, and accountability. The crisis has also suffered from serious deficiencies in international attention and humanitarian funding. In June 2025, the Norwegian Refugee Council identified Cameroon as the world’s most neglected displacement crisis; its June 2026 assessment reported that Cameroon’s 2025 humanitarian response received only 24 per cent of the requested funding. These are nationwide humanitarian assessments encompassing multiple crises, not figures exclusively attributable to the Anglophone conflict, but they reveal the broader extent of international neglect. International actors must therefore move beyond episodic condemnation towards consistent diplomatic engagement, independent human rights monitoring, sustained humanitarian financing and practical support for inclusive negotiations. Respect for state sovereignty remains fundamental, but sovereignty cannot reasonably be interpreted as extinguishing a state’s international obligations to protect human rights or preventing lawful international scrutiny of serious violations.
Ultimately, the Anglophone crisis demands a comprehensive, rights-centred and politically credible approach to peace that places civilian protection, constitutional reform, judicial accountability and socioeconomic reconstruction at the centre of national policy. The immediate priorities must include meaningful measures to halt attacks on civilians, respect international humanitarian law, facilitate unrestricted humanitarian access, protect schools and healthcare facilities, and address arbitrary detention and hostage-taking. These should be accompanied by an independently supported accountability framework that can investigate serious violations by all parties, protect witnesses, facilitate survivor participation, and provide effective remedies and reparations. A sustainable political settlement must create space for credible, inclusive and independently facilitated dialogue involving government representatives, separatist stakeholders, traditional and religious authorities, civil society, women’s organisations, youth representatives and displaced communities. Participation must be substantive, not ceremonial. Particular attention should be devoted to restoring education, rebuilding healthcare systems, providing trauma-informed support to survivors, rehabilitating damaged infrastructure and creating viable economic opportunities for conflict-affected populations. The international community must complement these domestic responsibilities with consistent diplomacy, principled accountability measures, and long-term reconstruction support. As my doctoral research and subsequent publications collectively suggest, Cameroon’s central challenge is not simply the absence of adequate legal norms but the failure to translate constitutional and international obligations into enforceable rights within a political system shaped by entrenched power relations. The Anglophone crisis has demonstrated the human consequences of that failure with devastating clarity. After nearly a decade of violence, the central question is no longer whether Cameroon can afford meaningful constitutional and institutional reform, but whether it can afford the continuing human, judicial, economic and political cost of refusing it. Peace will remain elusive as long as political survival takes precedence over human dignity, impunity replaces justice, and international expressions of concern are not matched by sustained action. The restoration of human rights must therefore become not a consequence of peace, but its fundamental precondition.
Dr Nelson A. Agbor, AFHEA
Law Lecturer @Northampton University,
Certified Human Rights Consultant, Independent Country Expert
