Cameroon: 6 Arrested for Handing Out Pandemic Masks

Six men affiliated with the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) were arrested earlier this week for distributing supplies meant to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

On Tuesday, 12 May, the opposition party members were handing out hand sanitisers and face masks in Mokolo market – one of the country’s largest that’s situated in the capital, Yaounde – when local police arrived.

The activists say the arrests were politically motivated; however, the police officials claim the men were engaged in an “illegal campaign”.

In early April, the MRC held a donation drive aimed at providing support for COVID-19 relief efforts, but authorities shut it down.

MRC spokesperson, Bibou Nissack, claims the government of president Paul Biya is actively preventing the party from assisting Cameroonians in battling the virus.

The central African nation has seen 125 of its citizens succumb to the ongoing pandemic, while 2 689 citizens currently suffer from the contagion.

Two unnamed senior MRC officials have been summoned to the capital to hand themselves over to the police.