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From farmers to fighters – an anglophone armed group

I spent a week with an armed group called the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF). Since October 2017, this group has been fighting against the Cameroonian army army to gain independence for a new state they call Ambazonia.

The ADF killed and kidnapped numerous officials in the Northwest Region and the Southwest Region. This is the first time a journalist interviewed them.

The story was split into two articles for IRIN:

Part 1 looked at the origins of the conflict, revealing that most of the fighters for the ADF used to be farmers who were forced to flee their villages after attacks by the army

In part 2, I wrote about their spiritual equipment, Odeshi, which is meant to protect them against bullets. It’s key to their unequal fight against a very powerful Cameroonian army.

The videos I took were edited into a short documentary for TV5 Monde.