Report has it that Cameroonian journalist Samuel Wazizi, who was arrested in August for criticising the government’s handling of a separatist revolt, has died in detention, Africa-News reports.
Wazizi who worked for CMTV, a local broadcaster based in Southwest Region, one of two areas where separatists in 2017 launched an armed campaign to establish an independent homeland for Cameroon’s English-speaking minority.
Wazizi died in detention after he had been arrested on August 2, 2019, and “accused of speaking critically on the air about the authorities and their handling of crisis of the government.
On Tuesday, it was reported that a privately-owned channel Equinoxe TV, quoting what it described as sources close to the military command, said Wazizi had died during transfer to the capital, Yaounde, at an unknown date after his arrest.
Africa-News said Wazizi’s death in detention, while being held incommunicado, “is the worst crime against a journalist in the past 10 years in Cameroon”.
“We call on the Cameroonian authorities to end the intolerable silence around this case, to return the journalist’s body to his family, and to conduct a thorough, independent investigation to establish the chain of responsibility and circumstances leading to this tragedy and till now the government has not yet responded to his death. Africa-News reports.