At the behest of the Prime Minister, Head of Government, a delegation left Yaoundé to appease disgruntled repentant separatist fighters lodged at the National Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, NDDR, Centre in Bamenda.

The Prime Minister’s envoy, Gillette Nkwain Ngam touched down on Bamenda Wednesday, February 17, 2021, accompanied by representatives of other ministerial departments.

The team was the bearer of a FCFA 4 million financial package for the ex-fighters. FCFA 3 million was handed to the ex-fighters to cater for their welfare while FCFA 1 million was given to the Director of DDR Bamenda, Sixtus Gabsa for the establishment of identification cards for the former Ambazonia fighters.

When the ex-combatants marched to the office of the North West Regional Governor on Monday, February 15, 2021, it was to remind the government of its “unfulfilled promises”.

“Amba must obey government…if you want to kill me, go ahead. But I will never run away from this country,” the ex-fighters sang waving the Cameroon flag as they marched up to the Governor’s office.

The former fighters told Governor Lele Lafrique Tchoffo Deben Adolphe that the government is yet to fulfill some of the enticing promises that made them drop their weapons.

Aside from asking the government to improve their living conditions, the protesters requested that they be given identification cards.

They also asked the government to put them on an allowance that can enable them to meet up with some of their daily needs.

“We also want the government to put out a clear calendar for those who have been disarmed. We need to know how long we have to stay in the DDR center before we can be reintegrated into society. Some of us have been here for too long,” one of the ex-fighters is quoted as saying.

Governor Lele Lafrique Tchoffo Deben Adolphe asked the protesters to put their demands in writing. He promised to visit them at their center on Wednesday.

After a brief meeting with the Governor and a working session with the ex-fighters, the team from Yaoundé gave assurances that plans are being finalized to reintegrate some of the disarmed fighters and make life at the disarmament centers more beautiful.

The government says upon their reintegration into society, the ex-fighters will not only have jobs, but they will also be job creators.

The ex-combatants handed over a written document containing their demands to the Governor who in turn handed it to the Yaounde delegation for the appreciation of hierarchy.

Source: Cameroon Info.Net

More than 40 Democratic members of Congress wrote a letter to President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday asking them to grant temporary protected status to Cameroonians living in the U.S. by placing an 18-month pause on their deportations, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News.

The members of Congress were led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who has repeatedly called on both the Trump and now Biden administrations to halt deportations of Cameroonians who are seeking asylum from the humanitarian crisis in their country.

Under the Trump administration, Cameroonians who were denied asylum were sent back on what their lawyers referred to as “death planes” because of what they say is all but certain imprisonment and execution they would face at the hands of the government upon return.

“The Trump administration has shamefully mistreated and deported Cameroonian asylum seekers back to danger just this year. We urge you to do much better,” the 14 senators and 28 House members said in their letter.

Temporary protected status is given to people already in the United States from countries devastated by conflict or natural disasters.

The letter asks that the Biden administration either grant temporary protected status or what is known as deferred enforcement departure, a power given to the president that would allow Cameroonians to be protected from deportation without having to register for a special program.

Currently more than 100 Cameroonians are in ICE custody with final orders of removal, according to their lawyers, which means they could be deported any day.

Justice Bantar, an asylum seeker who was imprisoned and tortured in Cameroon, has twice been told he would be deported only to be pulled back at the last minute. One of those times was under the current administration.

“It’s psychological torture,” said Bantar’s attorney, Joseph Giardina. “He trashed all of his belongings along with the statements and evidence for his asylum case, thinking he was going back to a country where he has an arrest warrant.”

Giardina said Bantar and other Cameroonians had held out hope that the Biden administration would cancel their deportations but have so far been disappointed.

According to the letter, Human Rights Watch estimates 3.9 million people in Cameroon are in need of humanitarian assistance, in large part because of multiple armed conflicts between the government, separatists and the Boko Haram jihadi terrorist group.

“Country conditions in Cameroon are both extraordinary and temporary, making return untenable and warranting immediate protections for Cameroonians living in the United States,” the letter said.

Source: NBC News

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima has said that the recent action taken by Ambazonians in the diaspora codenamed Operation Big Rubbergun will compel the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé to start showing respect for the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and assist Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces in the fight against La Republique du Cameroun’s terrorism until complete independence is gotten.

The Southern Cameroons leader made the statement on Tuesday at the end of a strategic meeting grouping Southern Cameroonians with expertise on defense.

Dabney Yerima reiterated the Interim Government’s unfaltering commitment towards Ambazonia’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, and urged the UN, the EU including the AU to do the same.

Vice President Yerima reasserted Southern Cameroons commitment to realization of a long-term and viable political solution for La Republique du Cameroun and the Federal Republic of Ambazonia that would be implemented by the governments of the two nations with the help of the United Nations.

At the heart of the crisis, which started in 2016, was a strike by teachers and lawyers, in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The professionals, supported by citizens of their areas, protested the unfair use of the French language and unjustified appointments of French speakers in their territories. Cameroon is a bilingual country. By 2017, the situation had spiralled out of control and developed into a fully-fledged separatist war. Both government forces and separatists are now bogged down in a conflict, that observers say, can only be resolved through dialogue.

By Isong Asu in London

A plane carrying Cameroonian, Angolan and Congolese asylum seekers due to take off from Alexandria, Louisiana, was cancelled with minutes to spare after advocacy groups published affidavits by detainees of torture by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

The affidavits listed a host of violent tactics ICE officials had reportedly used to pressure the detainees to submit to their deportation. ICE agents were accused of choking, beating, and forcing the asylum seekers to agree to expulsion by threatening them placement in Covid-19 wards.

ICE was accused of similar abuse in October but denied the claims and did not change its policy of accelerated deportation of African and Caribbean asylum seekers. An ICE spokesperson has now signaled a change in stance.

ICE cancelled the planned deportation “to allow any potential victims or witnesses an opportunity to be interviewed and will conduct an agency review of recent use-of-force reports related to individuals on this flight, and issue any additional guidance or training as deemed necessary,” it wrote in a statement.

Clovis Fozao, one of the detainees facing expulsion spoke to The Intercept news outlet. He described threats made by ICE agents. Detained migrants who didn’t submit to removal, he said, would be moved to Bravo-Alpha, the detention unit where coronavirus-positive detainees are held in quarantine.

The Pine Prairie facility, which is operated by the private prison firm GEO Group, currently has 21 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to ICE’s own tracker.

Among the advocacy groups protesting ICE deportation threats were Freedom for Immigrants, Al Otro Lado, Advocates for Immigrants Rights and Witness at the Border.

Since Cameroon descended into civil war in 2016, more than 400,000 people have fled ethnic and political persecution, with thousands seeking asylum in the United States, wrote the Foreign Policy (FP) news magazine. Many have instead been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), suffering conditions that advocates say flout international norms for the treatment of refugees.

The inhumane treatment comes despite the role of the United States in Cameroon’s civil war, according to FP in an article titled “The United States Has Failed Cameroonian Asylum-Seekers”.

“In addition to their colonial legacies,” they wrote, “western countries have fanned the flames of the crisis by indirectly bankrolling the persecution of Anglophones with funds for infrastructure and counterterrorism operations.

“While the White House denounced (the Paul Biya) administration, the United States donated military helicopters, turboprop jets, and drones to his arsenal. Cameroonians have fled a crisis shaped in part by the West only to be met with hostility on American shores.”

According to Witness at the Border, ICE conducted 1,008 deportation flights in 2020, to at least 31 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. Among the deportees was Paul Pierrilus, a 40-year-old financial consultant from New York State who had never been to Haiti and is not a Haitian citizen, according to the country’s ambassador to Washington.

Source: IDN-InDepthNews

Three members of the Cameroonian Navy have been killed in an ambush attributed to English-speaking separatists, a local official said Monday.

The incident occurred on Sunday in Ekondo-Titi, a coastal town in the country’s South West region.

“Four soldiers belonging to the 21st battalion of the Navy were ambushed in the village Bekora Barombi in Ekondo-Titi, not far from their post,” Nwafua Laurence, a local official, told Anadolu Agency.

“Three of the sailors were killed while the fourth was seriously injured.”

Ekondo-Titi, located near the border with Nigeria, is regularly targeted by English-speaking separatists.

The Central African country has been marred by protests and violence since 2016, with residents in English-speaking regions saying they have been marginalized for decades by the central government and the French-speaking majority.

They are calling for independence or a return to a federal state.

Violence in the Anglophone regions has claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and caused the displacement of over 730,000 civilians, according to the Human Rights Watch.

In 2020, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said for a second year running that Cameroon topped the list as the most neglected crisis on the planet.

Source: Anadolu Agency