The situation in English-speaking regions of Cameroon is “marked by blind, inhuman, monstrous violence and by a radicalisation of positions that alarm us,” said the president of the Cameroon bishops’ conference.

“Let us stop all forms of violence and let us stop killing each other,” said Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala, the president, in a statement May 16. “Let us save our country from an unfounded and useless civil war.”

Caritas Internationalis, in an appeal launched May 15, reported that the conflict in Cameroon “has forced 160,000 people out of their homes into the bush and a further 26,000 to cross into Nigeria as they flee regions ‘stalked by fear and death.’ Whether a person speaks English or French has become a reason to kill.”

Tensions between Cameroon’s French-speaking majority and English-speaking minority have been growing since late 2016 when lawyers and then teachers in the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon went on strike to protest the appointment of French-speaking judges and the use of French in schools. In October, English-speaking separatists declared an independent state, “Ambazonia.”

Archbishop Kleda’s statement said, “the brutal repression of the army against an independence movement in the English-speaking regions of the country” has fuelled an escalation of the humanitarian crisis.

“Not a week goes by without houses being burned down, people kidnapped or killed. Fear has taken over this territory,” wrote Hippolyte Sando of Caritas Cameroon in a letter March 28 from Mamfe, a diocese in the southwest which Caritas described as being at the “epicenter” of the violence.

“The village of Kembong is a typical example of the suffering of the people. Here, young and old alike have been sleeping in the forest since Sept. 29,” Sando wrote. “Two priests and a hundred or so villagers spent months living in the compound of Bishop Andrew Nkea of Mamfe, and it was only recently that they cautiously agreed to go back to their villages on the condition that they would no longer be attacked.”

The diocesan, national and international Caritas organisations are mobilising to provide emergency aid both within Cameroon and across the border in Nigeria where many of the refugees have sought shelter and safety.

Source: The Tablet

Nigeria’s security forces have been accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during its fight against Islamist insurgency Boko Haram.

A new report released by Amnesty International on Thursday reveals how the crimes were perpetrated for years and have continued despite a presidential inquiry established last August.

In some cases, the abuse appears to be part of a pattern of persecution of anyone perceived to have a connection to Boko Haram.

According to Amnesty’s report, interviewees “said that when the military conducted operations in their villages, they burnt down homes and opened fire at remaining residents indiscriminately.”

“It is absolutely shocking that people who had already suffered so much under Boko Haram have been condemned to further horrendous abuse by the Nigerian military,” said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

The human rights watchdog has accused Nigerian security forces of raping thousands of women and girls at the Internally Displaced Persons camps in the country.

“Instead of receiving protection from the authorities, women and girls have been forced to succumb to rape in order to avoid starvation or hunger,” added Ojigho.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters has accused Amnesty International of planning to destabilize the country. The military had announced on Wednesday that it received credible intelligence report of a plan by the human rights body to release what it calls a false report.

“The Defence Headquarters therefore, urge all law abiding citizens to continue to trust and support the military in the ongoing war against Boko Haram and go about their normal lawful business,” read an extract from the military statement.

Nigeria has waged a nine-year war against Boko Haram. Over 2 million people have been displaced and thousands have been killed.

Source: Africa News

The war that Cameroon’s government declared on armed separatists fighting for the independence of the English-speaking regions from the bilingual English/Francophone country is leaving many casualties among both the military and the insurgents. Hundreds have died in the fighting that is now in its sixth month — and hundreds more are missing.

A military ambulance rushes to the Yaounde military hospital on Tuesday with four people wounded in a flare-up of fighting in the English-speaking southwestern towns of Bangem and Mamfe.

Among the medical staff on duty is Doctor Kaldadak Koufagued. He says they got word that a military helicopter was bringing three Cameroon army soldiers and a notorious suspected armed separatist who sustained fractures in a heavy gun battle.

He says all staff in the military hospital are mobilized to receive patients as soon as they receive signs of casualties from the war front. He says that in treating the wounded, they do not distinguish between Cameroon soldiers or armed separatists, but once treated, the military takes suspected terrorists and armed separatists into custody so they can face charges in the military tribunal.

Koufagued says three of the wounded Tuesday have gone into hypovolemic shock, a life-threatening condition that occurs when persons lose more than 20 percent of their blood. Another of the wounded fighters is suffering from psychological trauma.

There are about 60 wounded persons in the hospital. VOA is only authorized to interview soldiers who are now recovering. Sergeant Achilles Nomo Atouba says he woke up in the hospital two weeks ago after he lost consciousness when his military convoy was attacked.

He says the convoy was ambushed by armed separatists as it escorted government officials to the southwestern town of Akwaya. He says he does not know how he got to the hospital and remembers only there was heavy shooting.

Quartermaster Second-class Abaicho Abba has had parts of his legs amputated. He says he is sure the terrorists he was sent to infiltrate as an informant discovered his true identity.

He says he got three gunshots to his legs when he fought back after three heavily armed men on motorcycles attacked him. He says he was dispatched to serve as an informant for Cameroon military.

Aside from the hospital in Yaounde, 20 wounded persons are being treated at the military hospital in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala. Others are receiving treatment at hospitals in towns considered safer in the English-speaking northwest and southwest regions. The government says only complicated cases are referred to specialized military hospitals.

Violence broke out in the English-speaking northwest and southwest in November 2016 when a strike by English-speaking lawyers and teachers against what they said was marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority degenerated into calls for secession. Suspected separatists torched schools and public buildings and the government responded with a crackdown. A year later, president Paul Biya declared war on the separatists, whom he labelled terrorists.

Julius Ayuk Tabe, president of the self-declared breakaway English-speaking state of Ambazonia that is made up of the Anglophone regions, was arrested in Nigeria with 47 collaborators in January and extradited to Cameroon. They have not been seen since then.

The armed separatists have vowed to continue fighting until they are released and are granted independence.

More than 70 villages have been torched and the United Nations reports hundreds of thousands have fled to the forests and towns in the French speaking-regions. At least 20,000 have crossed into Nigeria. Two hundred have died and hundreds are missing.

Culled from VOA

Cameroonian authorities have summoned the United States’ ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to have him explain his earlier anti-government comments.

US Ambassador Peter Barlerin was called in to the Cameroonian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

Earlier, on May 18, Barlerin had accused government forces of the “targeted killing” of separatists in the autonomy-seeking English-speaking regions of the country.

“On the side of the government, there have been targeted killings, detentions without access to legal support, family, or the Red Cross, and burning and looting of villages,” he had alleged in a statement. He had also accused the separatists of “murders of gendarmes, kidnapping of government officials, and burning of schools.”

In related news on Tuesday, the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said around 160,000 people had been internally displaced by the fighting between government forces and separatists in Cameroon. Some 20,000 have sought refuge in neighboring Nigeria, according to OCHA.

In 2016, separatists from the Anglophone community in the country stepped up a campaign for greater autonomy.

The minority accounts for about a fifth of the country’s population of 22 million.

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has rejected the Anglophones’ autonomy demands, prompting radicals to issue a full-blown but symbolic declaration of independence last October.

Armed clashes then ensued between government forces and the separatists.

Many Anglophones in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon complain of marginalization in education, the judiciary, and the economy.

Since the end of 2016, at least 120 civilians and at least 43 security forces have been killed in the fighting, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

Source: Presstv