Cameroon government suppresses private security companies

Cameroon’s government says it is clamping down on unlicensed private security firms in an effort to improve public safety and enforce regulations.

It plans to close all but nine of the country’s nearly 50 private companies. The sector's numbers have risen sharply in the two years since the militant group Boko Haram began carrying out attacks in the country’s northern region. Cameroon has an estimated 70,000 private security guards, compared with about 15,000 armed policemen.

The closings could leave tens of thousands of people jobless, authorities say, but they contend the sector has become rife with crime.

Criminal suspects are all too common among the ranks of private security guards, according to Senior Police Commissioner Ossomba Ansleme. He said two guards had been taken into custody as suspects in a rape case being investigated this week in the capital.

Police reportedly still are hunting for five people suspected of attacking Chinese gold miners last week in the town of Ngaoundere. Authorities killed one alleged assailant – and then realized the dead man, and possibly his five peers, had been hired as guards by the victims.