The population of Cameroon is composed of an 80% Francophone majority and a 20% Anglophone minority, with the latter living predominantly in the Northwest and Southwest regions. The colonial language divisions are reflective of the territories that were controlled by Britain and France following the First World War. Both French and English are official languages under Cameroon’s Constitution, which further outlines that they have the same status, and that the State should “endeavour to protect and promote national languages.” Even with this provision, and other constitutional protections, including equality of all citizens before the law, claims of bias against and marginalization of Anglophone Cameroonians arose.

In October 2016, lawyers began mobilizing to protest the State’s failure to translate legal texts into English and “the ‘francophonisation” of Common Law jurisdictions.” The following month, teachers and students also went on strike against perceived discrimination. Protests were violently dispersed by State authorities. The situation continued to escalate as authorities “banned civil society organizations, suspended the internet and cut phone lines for about six months in 2017.” Later in the year, demonstrations celebrating the “symbolic independence from the country’s French-speaking areas were met with unlawful and excessive and deadly force.”

Violence between Cameroon authorities and armed separatist groups spurred displacement. In November 2018, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) estimated that at least 437,000 individuals were “internally displaced in the South-West, North-West and in neighbouring departments due to hostilities between armed groups and security forces.” During the same period, the UN reported that over 26,000 Cameroonians had fled to Nigeria. By February 2020, 679,000 individuals were internally displaced in the Northwest and Southwest regions, and approximately 60,000 individuals were seeking asylum in Nigeria.

While instability in Cameroon was a driver of displacement for its nationals, the State also received asylum-seekers. This was spurred by attacks launched by Boko Haram throughout Africa’s Lake Chad Basin, which includes parts of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. Large-scale displacement has occurred throughout the region. In February 2020, the UNHCR estimated that there were 2,617,808 internally displaced persons in the Lake Chad Basin, with Nigerians accounting for the overwhelming majority of IDPs (at upwards of 2 million). Amongst those displaced, Cameroon hosted the majority of Nigerian refugees, with approximately 105,923 of the total 107,840 of the Nigerian refugees in Cameroon in the Far North region.

Notably, the high number of refugees persists despite the signing of a tripartite agreement between Cameroon, Nigeria, and the UNHCR in 2017 to facilitate the voluntary return of Nigerian refugees in Cameroon. Even with the agreement in place, Human Rights Watch documented abuses faced by Nigerian asylum seekers and refugees, including their forcible return to Nigeria by Cameroonian authorities.