Cameroon
Practice Relating to Rule 121. Location of Internment and Detention Centres
Cameroon’s Instructor’s Manual (1992) provides that internment centres “shall be located at a sufficient distance between military objectives and civilian or sanitary objects”. It also states: “Prisoner of war camps shall not be improvised … and guarantee sufficient conditions of hygiene and healthfulness.”
Cameroon’s Instructor’s Manual (2006) states: “Prisoners of war must be rapidly evacuated from the combat zone. Their security must be secured during the evacuation. They must be cared for and fed. Their sojourn in transit camps must be brief.”
The manual further states that commanders must ensure that prisoner-of-war camps “must be located at a sufficient distance from military objectives” and in the “rear”, i.e. in “zones away from where the combat is taking place”.
The manual also provides:
Interment camps [of prisoners of war] must fulfil the following requirements:
- [be located at] sufficient distance between military objectives and medical or civilian objects.
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Preferably they must be situated on firm ground and must meet all hygiene and health standards.
Cameroon’s Disciplinary Regulations (2007) states:
Article 33: Treatment of prisoners of war
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Prisoners must be evacuated, as soon as possible after their interrogation, to collection points situated in an area far enough from the combat zone, thus avoiding exposing them unnecessarily to danger.
The evacuation of prisoners must be effected in the same conditions of safety as those for the changes of station of friendly troops.