Since the proclamation of independence for Cameroon's two English-speaking regions on October 1, 2017, Cameroonian forces have been battling secessionist militants called Ambazonians. In one of these two provinces (the Northwest), the Mbororo Fulani herding community has sided with the Cameroonian government.

This positioning in the anglophone conflict is the result of a political and strategic choice and has led to a guerrilla land war in the region.

The Mbororo feel excluded by the indigenous farming communities in a region saturated by land conflicts. When the Anglophone crisis erupted in 2017, coexistence between the indigenous populations of the Northwest and the Mbororo Fulani, who have been settled in the hills of this province for almost a century, was already difficult due to land and agro-pastoral conflicts that could, episodically, degenerate into inter-community violence. 

By siding with the government, they hope that the government will recognize the legitimacy of their sedentarization and limit the extortion practices of regular security forces against them.

The Mbororo militias provide the latter with their knowledge of the ground and occasionally serve as their auxiliaries. Several local conflicts are therefore part of the Anglophone conflict and fuel it. However, given the stalemate in the Anglophone conflict, some communities are trying to emerge from this land guerrilla war by preserving spaces for peaceful coexistence and grassroots negotiations.

>>> This publication is only available in French (PDF) : Les Peuls Mbororo dans le conflit anglophone : des luttes foncières locales au conflit régional