{"id":96670,"date":"2023-01-11T02:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/all-medecins-sans-frontieres-msf-staff-acquitted-in-military-tribunal-in-cameroon\/"},"modified":"2023-01-11T02:00:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T00:00:10","slug":"all-medecins-sans-frontieres-msf-staff-acquitted-in-military-tribunal-in-cameroon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/all-medecins-sans-frontieres-msf-staff-acquitted-in-military-tribunal-in-cameroon\/","title":{"rendered":"All M\u00e9decins sans fronti\u00e8res (MSF) staff acquitted in military tribunal in Cameroon"},"content":{"rendered":"

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M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) expresses relief at the acquittal of staff after lengthy and unjustified imprisonment in Cameroon; as people in the South-West region are in desperate need of lifesaving medical assistance, MSF\u00a0continues to seek engagement\u00a0with the authorities to resume activities in\u00a0safety.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The international medical humanitarian organisation M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) is extremely relieved at the acquittal of five of our staff, who faced trial in\u00a0Cameroon<\/a>, accused of complicity with secession. Four of the staff in question had to endure incarceration for many months.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On 26 December 2021,\u00a0an MSF nurse and ambulance driver were arrested in Nguti<\/a>\u00a0(South-West region of Cameroon), while transporting a patient with a gunshot wound to hospital. After being detained in prison for five months, for the charge of complicity with secessionists, both aid workers were provisionally released in May 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Two other colleagues, a community health worker and assistant field coordinator, were detained in January 2022 under the same charge while another was accused in absentia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On 1 November 2022, the Buea Military Tribunal ruled \u201cno case to answer\u201d, regarding one of the aid workers in question, citing a lack of evidence. The MSF staff member was released soon after the ruling, having spent 10 months in prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Finally, on 29 December, all remaining MSF staff members who had been detained were acquitted \u2013 the last of whom was released the following day. A judgement of acquittal was also declared regarding an MSF project coordinator who had been tried in absentia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are enormously satisfied with the judgement that exonerates our five staff members \u2013 and, by extension, MSF as an organisation \u2013 of any wrongdoing,\u201d says Sylvain Groulx, MSF coordinator in central Africa.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

MSF deplores the fact that our staff were forced to endure almost a year of imprisonment, which caused untold distress and anguish for them and their families.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMSF has categorically denied any complicity with armed groups or parties to any violent crisis or conflict. Our staff are guided by medical ethics \u2013 these accusations were groundless from the first instance, especially as the authorities knew exactly how we were providing medical support,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAccusing medical personnel for simply doing their job \u2013 treating patients in front of them \u2013 is simply against all medical and humanitarian ethics and laws,\u201d says Groulx.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In May 2022, following the detention of MSF\u2019s four staff members, our teams made the difficult decision to\u00a0suspend activities in the South-West region of Cameroon<\/a>. We are keen to restart our much-needed lifesaving services, but basic preconditions must be met to ensure that our medical activities can be conducted in a safe and secure environment, so that patients and staff are protected.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite our attempts to open a channel of dialogue with the government, to ensure our teams can continue vital activities in the South-West region, the government has been unresponsive. This has made it difficult to reach an agreement that ensures working conditions guarantee the safety of our teams and patients,\u201d says Groulx.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis prevents us from resuming critical lifesaving medical services, which are desperately needed in the South-West,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

MSF teams must be able to provide medical care to every patient in need, in line with medical ethics and following the humanitarian principles of independence, impartiality and neutrality.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain ready to continue discussions with the Cameroonian authorities to analyse the feasibility of restarting medical and humanitarian activities in South-West region under such preconditions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In December 2020, authorities suspended MSF medical activities in the North-West region following a series of allegations accusing MSF of supporting local armed groups, which MSF has consistently denied both publicly and in meetings with authorities. This suspension was never lifted and, here as well, MSF remains open to dialogue to restart its medical support for people in the region.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of M\u00e9decins sans fronti\u00e8res (MSF).<\/i><\/p>\n

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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 West Africa Cameroon<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) expresses relief at the acquittal of staff after lengthy and unjustified imprisonment in Cameroon; as people in the South-West region are in desperate need of lifesaving medical assistance, MSF\u00a0continues to seek engagement\u00a0with the authorities to resume activities in\u00a0safety. The international medical humanitarian organisation M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) is extremely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":96671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/uploads\/socialshare.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[376],"tags":[6617,258,256,4698,377,44130,39443,3318,1951,257,39041,254,6221,4877],"class_list":["post-96670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameroon","tag-acquitted","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-cameroon","tag-cameroon-news","tag-frontieres","tag-medecins","tag-military","tag-msf","tag-news","tag-sans","tag-south-africa-today","tag-staff","tag-tribunal"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/uploads\/socialshare.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}