The message of national solidarity around the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have been lost in Cameroon.
While several other governments are calling on its citizens to pull together and help one another, Cameroon's ruling party is using the pandemic to settle scores and punish the opposition.
On May 11, 6 volunteers from the "Survival Initiative," a fundraising initiative launched by opposition leader Maurice Kamto to respond to the health emergency, were arrested while handing out protective masks and sanitizing gel for free to people in Yaoundé, the capital.
Earlier in May, the health minister rejected a donation by Kamto's initiative of 16,000 protective and surgical masks and 950 Covid-19 screening tests, claiming the initiative had not been legally established.
On April 7, Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji told anyone fundraising to fight Covid-19 to stop and told citizens instead to make contributions to the "Special Fund of National Solidarity" created by Cameroon's president, Paul Biya.
