Cameroonian President Paul Biya. Photo: EPA-EFE/LINTAO ZHANG

Amnesty International said on Friday that it has obtained a video of Cameroonian soldiers, some armed with Serbian guns, burning structures which are likely to be homes and then killing 12 people in the village of Achigaya in the far north of the country.

“Using advanced digital analysis tools, Amnesty International experts were able to confirm that the video, shot at an unknown date but prior to May 2016, corroborates previous accounts of extrajudicial executions which the Cameroonian authorities have denied,” the organisation said.

Amnesty said that the footage shows a group of soldiers in their distinctive “lizard stripe” camouflage uniforms patrolling the village of Achigachiya, some armed with Serbian-made Zastava M21 rifles, and others mounted on a pick-up truck with a ZPU-2 anti-aircraft gun.

The video, apparently recorded by a member of the security forces, shows soldiers burning buildings, and then focuses on a group of 12 people lined against a wall, all sitting or lying down.

One minute and 40 seconds into the video, numerous soldiers using automatic weapons fire into the group for an extended period from several metres away.

A soldier then walks forward and fires again at close range at several people in the group, presumably to ensure there are no survivors, Amnesty said.

The M21 gun is produced at the Serbian state-owned Zastava arms factory in the central town of Kragujevac.

According to data from the UN/Arms Trade Treaty, Cameroon has been one of the largest recipients of Serbian weapons since 2013.

BIRN reported in September last year that messages on Twitter had captured images of Serbian-made Coyote machine guns in Cameroon and Nigeria – apparently seized from Boko Haram fighters.

Amnesty International has asked Serbia to stop exporting weapons to Cameroon after a video of executions in the country obtained in July 2018 showed what appeared to be soldiers using Serbian-made arms.

Cameroon has been battling Boko Haram insurgents in the north as well as armed separatists elsewhere in the central African state.

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