21, December 2021
Biya regime arrests hundreds for deadly clashes that displaced 100,000 in the Far North 0
Cameroonian authorities say troops have arrested hundreds of armed men blamed for communal violence in the northeast this month that displaced more than a hundred thousand people — most to neighboring Chad. Authorities say they also seized hundreds of weapons as well as cattle stolen during the conflict over scarce resources.
Cameroonian authorities say the military is conducting an intensive search to find and arrest additional armed men operating in Logone and Chari, along the northern border with Chad.
The governor of the Far North region, Midjiyawa Bakari, says military raids on hideouts in the area led to the arrests of several hundred men.
Speaking from the region’s capital, Maroua, Bakari said the men were believed responsible for much of the violence this month that displaced more than 100,000 people — most of them across the border to Chad.
He says besides the arrests, the military also seized several hundred weapons that the men were using to attack and kill civilians. Bakari says troops also seized 30 motorcycles that armed men from rival communities were using in attacks. He says more than 200 cattle stolen from ranchers have been recovered and will be handed over after investigations to determine their legitimate owners.
Clashes broke out on December 4 between ranchers and fishers over water resources, leaving scores dead and sending tens of thousands fleeing — most of them women and children.
Arab Choua cattle ranchers and ethnic Mousgoum fishers accuse each other of trespassing and occupying each other’s land.
Bakari says most males who remained in the villages are involved in the fighting.
He would not give details on how many people have been killed in the clashes but said no government troops are among the casualties.
President Paul Biya last week dispatched to the area a delegation of lawmakers, ministers, religious leaders, and traditional rulers to negotiate a peace between the communities.
Retired army colonel Hamad Kalkaba Malboum was part of the delegation.
He says in areas where the clashes have stopped, they are asking villagers to return home.
“The president of the republic of Cameroon sent the mission [delegation] to tell people that they must be calm, the government will give instructions to rebuild what has been destroyed, and we need also to prepare the development of that region, which has also suffered Boko Haram [atrocities],” he said.
Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group from Nigeria, has since 2014 spread to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, launching attacks that have killed more than 30,000 people and displaced two million.
Cameroon’s government is allocating $300 million to rebuild infrastructure the militants destroyed along the border.
The communal violence this month left several villages and markets burned to the ground.
Cameroonian authorities have asked people in the area who own weapons to hand them over.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports at least 85,000 Cameroonians have fled into neighboring Chad and 15,000 are internally displaced. But it says the real number could be much higher.
Source: VOA
21, December 2021
Prominent Nigerian human rights activists, Sowore, Odinkalu, Agomoh demand release of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides 0
Some prominent human rights’ activists in Nigeria have demanded the release of the Vice-President of American University Nigeria (AUN), Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine others arrested by the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigerian Police Force since 2018.
Tabe and other scholars were arrested by the then SARS operatives in January 2018 at Nera Hotel, Abuja, as alleged members of Ambazonia, also known as English-speaking Cameroon or Southern Cameroon and they had been illegally detained since then in Cameroon.
Despite the court ruling in 2019 that ordered the Nigerian government to unconditionally release them and a payment of N200milllion (about $500,000) to each for aggravated damages, the Cameroonian dons had remained in detention.
However, the activists including Omoyele Sowore; former Chairman of Nigerian Human Rights Commission and lawyer, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, and Executive Director, Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), Dr Uju Agomoh, have called for their release.
They also urged all students across universities, colleges and faculties to join in the struggle for the freedom of the scholars.
They disclosed these in a statement, “Call for SARS to Release and Return the Vice President of the American University of Nigeria and his Colleagues Now” made available to SaharaReporters on Tuesday.
The statement reads, “January 5, 2022, will mark four years since American University of Nigeria (AUN)’s Vice President and his colleagues have been illegally imprisoned after being snatched by Nigeria’s notoriously corrupt and ruthless paramilitary police known as SARS.
“The victims, leaders of the Ambazonian community living in Nigeria who have come to be known as the “Nera 10,” were meeting at the Nera Hotel to plan a meeting with the UNHCR regarding the plight of tens of thousands of refugees from Ambazonia (also known as English-speaking Cameroon or Southern Cameroon), who have been pushed across the border by the violent actions of the Cameroonian military.
“Those arrested include: Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Recruitment at American University of Nigeria (AUN) — Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, Assistant Professor of Computing, Director of the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness, and Vice Chair of the Institutional Review Board AUN — Dr. Fidelis Ndeh-Che, Head of the Surgery Unit of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, Ahmadu Bello University — Prof. Augustine Awasum, Associate Professor of Geology, Ahmadu Bello University — Dr. Henry Kimeng, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics, Yar’adua University — Dr. Cornelius Kwanga; Others are Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Bayero University — Dr. Egbe Ogork, Union organizer and Leader of the Teachers Unions and the Federation of Parent Teachers Union (CAPTAC) — Mr. Wilfred Tassang, Human Rights lawyer and Legal Worker Organizer — Barrister Shufai Berinyuy, Human Rights lawyer and Legal Worker Organizer — Barrister Eyambe EliasCivil Society leader — Dr. Nfor Ngalla Nfor.
“SARS was apparently acting in a back-room arrangement with next door Cameroon, which is controlled by the longest running dictatorship on earth, a French neocolonial regime. After holding these educators and civil rights leaders for three weeks, SARS in violation of their fundamental human rights and the international legal principle of non-refoulement, illegally handed them to Cameroon.
“Fourteen months later, in a sharp rebuke to the SARS and the Nigerian administration, the Federal High Court in Abuja issued a ruling that this abduction of the Nera 10 had violated Nigerian and international law.
“The Court ordered the Federal Government of Nigeria to ensure their immediate and unconditional release and return to Nigeria, and make a payment of two hundred million Naira (about five hundred thousand US Dollars) to each for aggravated damages.
“Yet, nearly three years later, no action has been made to implement the court’s decision. Instead, the Cameroon regime has continued and escalated a campaign of mass arrests, torture, arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances of teachers, students and civil society leaders from the targeted community.
“Activists on the ground estimate at least 3000 university lecturers, students, lawyers, trade unionists, human rights activists and journalists are being held in horrendous conditions in various detention facilities across the territory controlled by Cameroon solely for advocating for the rights and dignity of their community.
“They are being detained arbitrarily and many have spent years in prison without being charged or tried, with many reported cases of torture, squalid conditions, health neglect, and outright disappearances.
“On this sombre anniversary, we demand that SARS and the Nigerian and Cameroon governments respect the March 1, 2019, High Court decision and immediately return AUN Vice President Sisiku AyukTabe and his colleagues to their families and students.
“We call on faculty, staff, students, and human rights supporters worldwide to take action to demand the immediate rectification of this travesty of justice. Please contact the ambassadors and political leaders in your country who are responsible for maintaining relationships with Nigeria and Cameroon, and ask that they publicly demand the return of the “Nera 10” to their families and students.
“Examples of such ambassadors and political leaders include the US Secretary of State, UK Foreign Secretary, EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and the German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, etc.”
Source: Sahara Reporters