Cameroon: LGBTI activist group loses leader to fatal illness
Eitel Joris Ella Ella, executive director of the Cameroonian LGBTI rights group Camfaids, died today as a result of illness, Camfaids announced.
“We ask all those who knew him to pay for the repose of his soul,” Camfaids stated on Facebook. The organization did not provide specifics about the illness.
In January 2015, Camfaids chose Ella as its executive director. Previously he was its executive coordinator.
His death has sent the LGBTI community in Cameroon into mourning, including Serge Douomong Yotta, executive director of Affirmative Action in Yaoundé, who simply commented on the Camfaids Facebook announcement, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. “
LGBT rights supporter Sandrine Ateh said: “The LGBT entire family in Cameroon and elsewhere is touched by this. We’ll need great courage now.“
The previous executive director of Camfaids was activist and journalist Eric Ohena Lembembe, who wrote for this blog and served in that position until his murder in 2013.
Brice Evina remains the president of Camfaids, continuing the group’s work with the help of other officers of the association.
Camfaids, one of the most active associations advocating for LGBTI rights and health in Cameroon, was founded by Dominique Menoga in 2009.
Related articles:
- A busy month seeking LGBT rights in Cameroon (July 2016, 76crimes.com)
- Cameroon: New leadership for activist group Camfaids (December 2014, 76crimes.com)
- Cameroon: Slain activist mourned; the fight continues (July 2014, 76crimes.com)
- Pleas for justice and health in gay-bashing Cameroon (March 2014, 76crimes.com)
- Slain LGBT activist’s work survived his murder (January 2014, 76crimes.com)
