Douala, Cameroon’s largest city and economic capital, has become the epicenter of a crisis unfolding on two fronts at once. In recent weeks, sweeping arrests by state security forces have swept up dozens of residents based on perceived sexual orientation, while a string of unresolved killings has left the city’s minority community in mourning. Together, these events reveal a community caught between institutional hostility and the absence of protection.
A Mass Arrest in the Night
On the night of 23 August 2026, gendarmerie units carried out a large-scale operation across several Douala neighbourhoods, including Makepe and Bourramoussadi. More than sixty individuals identified or perceived as homosexual were apprehended and taken into custody. While many were released after paying informal “bail” sums, a smaller group remained detained for over a week at the Ndongbong gendarmerie unit, held in conditions marked by uncertainty, limited outside contact, and, according to civil society monitors, visible psychological distress.
Working For Our Wellbeing has tracked the case since its earliest hours, engaged directly with gendarmerie leadership to advocate for release, proposing accompaniment and social reintegration in place of prosecution. Those efforts met resistance. On 31 August, nine individuals, including one person presented as a minor, were formally referred to the Douala Military Tribunal. A prosecutor initially found the case file lacking sufficient evidence, yet rather than being released, the group was returned to custody pending further proceedings.
A Community Already in Mourning
The arrests unfolded against a backdrop of grief that has shaken the community for weeks. In mid-August, a well-known and well-liked young resident of Douala’s Logpom neighbourhood, Paul Gérard, was found dead in his home, having been beaten and strangled. Police later arrested the case’s main suspect, an outcome civil society observers noted stood in contrast to the fate of many such cases in Cameroon, which frequently go unresolved.
Gérard’s death followed another killing that had already drawn national attention: in May 2026, a transgender woman named Doloresse was killed in the Emombo neighbourhood of Yaoundé. Rights advocates have since called for thorough investigations into both cases. Human rights defender Ebenezer Munkan urged Cameroonian authorities to pursue those investigations to completion, insisting that every citizen, regardless of identity, deserves protection and justice under the law.
Nkwain Hamlet, a human rights advocate and Executive Director of Working For Our Wellbeing, echoed this call on his social media pages, urging Cameroonian authorities to conduct a proper and impartial investigation into Gérard’s killing and to ensure that those responsible are held fully accountable before the law. His appeal reflected a broader concern shared across the community: that without consistent follow-through by law enforcement and the judiciary, cases involving LGBTQI victims risk being treated with less urgency than they deserve.
A Pattern That Demands Attention
Taken together, the events of the past month reveal a pattern extending beyond any single case: a legal environment where sexual and gender minorities remain criminalised, a security apparatus willing to conduct sweeping arrests with minimal evidentiary basis, and a justice system that has historically struggled to hold perpetrators of anti-LGBTQI violence accountable. For organisations like ours, this dual reality defending the wrongly detained while mourning the unprotected has become the daily texture of our work.
The nine individuals currently before the Douala Military Tribunal, including a minor whose age and welfare urgently require protection, remain in a precarious legal position. Their case, alongside the memory of those recently lost, underscores a broader and urgent appeal: that Cameroonian authorities extend the same standard of protection and due process to all citizens, and that both the detained and the deceased be afforded the justice the law promises but has yet to deliver.
A Call for Accountability
What emerges from these events is not a call for retribution. Still, for consistency, the same protections and due process that Cameroon’s laws promise every citizen should be extended without exception to those most often left without recourse. The nine individuals awaiting resolution before the Douala Military Tribunal, the memory of Paul Gérard, and the memory of Doloresse each represent a test of whether the country’s institutions can meet their own stated commitments to justice. Civil society organisations, legal advocates, and international partners continue to stand ready to support a process rooted in fairness, transparency, and respect for the dignity of every person involved. Cameroon has the opportunity, in each of these cases, to demonstrate that no citizen stands outside the protection of the law and that opportunity should not be allowed to pass unanswered.
Working for Our Wellbeing 