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14, September 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Gov Ayade of Cross River State supports 46, 000 Ambazonian refugees ⁰

It’s been a long walk of pain anguish and even loss of loved ones as thousands fled from Southern Cameroon to seek asylum in Cross River state Nigeria for three years; following the Amazonian war in Southern Cameroon. These Cameroonians who were mostly women and children seeked shelter in various settlements in villages and were later relocated to refugee camps.

Governor Ben Ayade who received the Cameroonian Government delegation last month ensued for peace and proper resettlement of these refugees back in their land of birth. “In all we do as Government we must make humanity our focus”.

The Cameroonian Government which is expected back to the State soon, have praised Governor Ben Ayade and the good people of Cross River State for their immeasurable support to the refugees, the Government provided land for settlement, water and sanitation facilities, livelihood, security etc. Outstanding is the support from the health sector that have provided health care services through the Primary Health Centers and General Hospitals at various locations.

From time to time various health services have been provided at the refugees camp and settlements this includes Health sensitization, maternal and child health services, immunization, nutritional supplementation, renovation/equipping of facilities to serve the refugees and now COVID-19 sensitization and donation of COVID-19 items amongst others which was done by the Honorable Commissioner for Health Dr Betta Edu and her health team.

The Commissioner for Health with the COVID-19 taskforce paid a visit to the camp last week for COVID-19 sensitization, health talk, distribution of face masks hand sanitizers and other palliatives to the camp members at Ogoja. The compassionate Commissioner who spent quality time with families prayed that the refugees will return home soon with proper resettlement from their Government as the condition of living in the camps and settlements was not the best for children who for many have been out of school with poor access to social amenities while they are basically confined in camps and settlements with their parents or Guardians.

“We have sensitized them in groups and settlements on COVID-19 signs and symptoms which they must look out for, as well as linkages for reporting such cases if seen. While the remain within our Borders we must continue to protect them as an outbreak of any disease including COVID-19 will affect not just the refugees but the host communities and may lead to loss of lives. I commend Governor Ben Ayade for his sustained support to the refugees over the years working through various MDAs Dr Betta Edu who is also the Chairman of the CRS COVID-19 taskforce added.

Source: Vanguard

14, September 2020

Yaoundé says patients at risk as COVID scares away blood donors ⁰

Cameroon says it urgently needs more than 2,000 pints of blood to save the lives of about 300 people, including hemodialysis patients, in the central African state’s troubled English-speaking town of Bamenda.

Health workers say the fear of COVID-19, coupled with increasing attacks by separatist fighters, has scared away most blood donors. People wounded in the separatist crisis and dialysis patients are being rushed to hospitals in French-speaking towns.

Ngum Sirri, 55, was being rushed to the General Hospital in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, in the hospital’s ambulance. The hemodialysis patient was brought in from the English-speaking town of Bamenda by her family members. She says she is in search of blood to save her life.

“When you give blood you save lives, so we are pleading with the population to help us donate blood in the general hospital. There are vulnerable people in the hospital who need blood, like those with dialysis, those with sickle cells. We have blood shortage in the hospital,” she said.

Sirri is one of the 30 patients from the English-speaking northwestern town of Bamenda who have received emergency assistance at the General Hospital within the past six days.

Fidelis Ako, head of the blood transfusion unit of the Regional Hospital in Bamenda, confirmed that patients are leaving for French-speaking towns. He said blood banks are becoming empty in English-speaking towns. He said the separatist conflict led many blood donors to escape to safer localities and blood scarcity has now become acute with COVID-19 scare.

“The socio-political crisis (separatist conflict) has scared many of our donors away and then now the COVID-19. Since the hospital is a [COVID-19] treatment center, many people think that when you come here you will have coronavirus, and so we could not have persons coming to the hospital to donate blood and as well we could not organize mobile voluntary blood donation campaigns. People should not be afraid of coming to the hospital to make their blood donations because coronavirus is not injectable,” he said.

Ako says the blood bank of the Bameda hospital has not been able to help 40 patients in need within seven days.

“Last week we received over 70 requests for blood units, but we have been able to transfuse just 31 units of blood. Before the crisis we were transfusing over 4,000 units of blood per year, but as of now, we have not been able to transfuse up to 2,000 units so it shows that we are going to lose more patients because we don’t have blood units at the blood bank,” Ako said.

Cameroon said several patients have died as a result of the blood shortage and that its hospitals are finding it difficult to treat civilians wounded in the separatist conflict. Many of the injured are moved to hospitals in French-speaking towns like Bafoussam, Douala and Yaoundé.

Ako said health authorities last week announced incentives to encourage blood donation. Civilians who donate blood will have a 50% reduction in their medical bills when they become sick.

Non-governmental organizations have been encouraging people to donate blood. Feka Parchibel of the NGO Hope for Vulnerables and Orphans says many children they help also need blood.

“Our people are in dire need of blood. I am calling on all blood donors in the North West and the South West regions to help by rushing to the hospitals to donate blood to save lives. All we need is to practice all the preventive measures,” Parchibel said.

Cameroon has reported more than 20,000 COVID-19 cases, with 415 deaths since March 5, when the first coronavirus case was reported in the central African state, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Source: VOA

14, September 2020

French Cameroun Ministers can no longer count on Camair-Co ⁰

Short of viable planes, Camair-Co is under some form of CPDM pressure after ministers’ road accident in the Far North Region of French Cameroun.

The three French Cameroun members of government were forced to travel by road for want of available Camair-Co aircraft and ended up in a river. The accident puts the national carrier’s management in a bind, reported Africa Intelligence.

13, September 2020

Death toll in US wildfires expected to rise sharply ⁰

Search and rescue crews using dogs combed through neighborhoods left in blackened ruins by massive wildfires burning across three states on Saturday, and U.S. President Donald Trump said he would travel to California to see the devastation first-hand.

Flames have destroyed thousands of homes and a half dozen small towns in the latest outbreak of wildfires that have raged across the western United States this summer, scorching a landscape the size of New Jersey and killing at least 26 people since early August.

But after four days of brutally hot, windy weather, the weekend brought calmer winds blowing inland from the Pacific Ocean, and cooler, moister conditions that helped crews make headway against blazes that had burned unchecked earlier in the week.

At least six people have been killed this week in Oregon, according to the state’s wildfire tracking website. Governor Kate Brown has said that dozens of people remained missing across three counties.

In California, tens of thousands of firefighters were battling 28 major wildfires as of Saturday afternoon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Improving weather conditions had helped them gain a measure of containment over most of the blazes.

The White House said Trump, a Republican, will meet with California officials on Monday. The president has said that western governors bear some of the blame for intense fire seasons in recent years, accusing them of poor forest management.

Trump’s Democratic opponent in the November election, Joe Biden, on Saturday linked the conflagrations to climate change, echoing comments made a day earlier by California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Thick smoke blankets three states

“The debate is over around climate change. Just come to the state of California. Observe it with your own eyes,” Newsom said in a briefing livestreamed from a charred mountainside near Oroville, California.

The Pacific Northwest has since Labor Day endured a string of fierce wildfires that have darkened the sky with thick smoke and ash, creating some of the world’s worst air-quality levels and driving residents indoors.

The small mountain town of Paradise, California, nearly destroyed in 2018 by the deadliest wildfire in state history, posted the world’s worst air quality index reading at 592, according to the PurpleAir monitoring site, as two of the state’s largest blazes burned on either side of it.

More than 4,000 homes and other structures have been incinerated in California alone over the past three weeks.

In southern Oregon, an apocalyptic scene of charred residential subdivisions and trailer parks stretched for miles along Highway 99 south of Medford through the neighboring communities of Phoenix and Talent.

Molalla, a logging community 25 miles (40 km) south of downtown Portland, was an ash-covered ghost town after its more than 9,000 residents were told to evacuate, with only 30 refusing to leave, the city’s fire department said.

Molalla was on the front line of an evacuation zone stretching north to within 3 miles (4.8 km) of downtown Portland. The sheriff in suburban Clackamas County set a 10 p.m. PDT (0500 on Saturday GMT) curfew to deter “possible increased criminal activity.”

In Portland, the Multnomah County Sheriff chastised residents who had set up their own checkpoints to stop cars after conspiracy theories spread on social media that members of Black Lives Matter or Antifa were lighting fires. Local officials have called those assertions groundless.

“We are removing false claims that the wildfires in Oregon were started by certain groups,” a Facebook spokesman said on Saturday. “This is based on confirmation from law enforcement that these rumors are forcing local fire and police agencies to divert resources from fighting the fires and protecting the public.”

Source: REUTERS

13, September 2020

Southern Cameroons War: Biya has no sense of humanity ⁰

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government has condemned French Cameroun’s current military campaign in Bamenda that has aggravated the sufferings of the people of Southern Cameroons and it is also obstructing access to medical supplies amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking during a meeting with members of the Ambazonia Intelligence Community late on Friday, Dabney Yerima slammed the Biya French Cameroun regime for its atrocities in Southern Cameroons saying the 87 year old butcher in Yaoundé has no sense of humanity.

The Southern Cameroons Vice President also lashed out at what he called “deliberate silence” on the part of the international community.

“We have heard prominent figures around the globe alluding to the genocide going on in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia but no one is willing to take action against the French Cameroun crime syndicate in Yaounde” Vice President Yerima said.

“The crimes presently being committed in Southern Cameroons by the French Cameroun military is unprecedented in African history” Dabney Yerima underlined.

More than 35,000 Southern Cameroonians have been killed ever since President Biya of French Cameroun declared war against the people of Ambazonia. But the UN has maintained the tally at 3,000.

By Chi Prudence Asong

13, September 2020

IG strongly condemns any holding of Regional Elections in Southern Cameroons ⁰

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government has strongly condemned La Republique du Cameroun’s move to organize regional elections describing it as an act of provocation to the Ambazonian people.

“The Ambazonia Interim Government strongly condemns the French Cameroun ruling regime’s move in Southern Cameroons” the resistance exiled Southern Cameroons government said in a statement on Friday.

The IG statement pointed out that the regional elections are a framework of a policy pursued by mercenary elements from Southern Cameroons, who are traitors to their homeland.

Ilaria Allegrozzi a Senior Central Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch, focusing primarily on Cameroon has also reported that violence is continuing unabated in Southern Cameroons with the French Cameroun military enforcing “Operation Bamenda Clean”.

All Southern Cameroons groups have unanimously denounced the announced regional elections as completely unacceptable to the oppressed Ambazonian nation.

By Isong Asu

13, September 2020

Harsh vengeance awaits Minister Atanga Nji in Southern Cameroons ⁰

An Ambazonia commander in the Northern Zone has censured French Cameroun government’s plan of holding the so-called regional elections in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, saying French Cameroun surrogate Minister Paul Atanga Nji will face harsh revenge from Southern Cameroonians in the near future.

In an audio aired in the Nkwen language, the Amba commander observed that the disgraceful moves by Paul Atanga Nji and other pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons political elites with ties with the ruling CPDM gang is a big folly and devoid of any legitimacy and will receive appropriate responses from Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Ground Zero.

The Southern Cameroons commander added that the regional elections which has been engineered by French Cameroun political elites and their hated and unwise head of state Paul Biya, seeks to impose continuous humiliation on Southern Cameroonians, an unprecedented plunder of Southern Cameroons resources and assets, and ensure security for the occupying French Cameroun administrators and military officials. But he added that it would never achieve its vicious goal.

The commander appealed to Vice President Yerima to boost the power and determination of Southern Cameroonians in the diaspora and in Ground Zero for the struggle to attain its full potential capabilities and subsequently remove the cancerous tumor of La Republique du Cameroun from the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The commander warned all Southern Cameroons puppet traditional rulers against participating in the regional elections that is intended to pave the way for French Cameroun regime’s absolute control of Southern Cameroons.

The Southern Cameroons Self Defense chief emphasized that Amba fighters would take harsh revenge on men like Atanga Nji who bring oppression, terror, violence, war, and insecurity to Southern Cameroons.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda

12, September 2020

French Cameroun Crisis: CPDM crime syndicate bans mass rally against Biya ⁰

French Cameroun authorities have banned all demonstrations in the nation’s capital Yaoundé. According to a press release detailing the order, the governor of the Centre Region, Naseri Paul Bea stated that the aim is to prevent disturbances of public order.

The Biya regime decision comes as MRC leader Maurice Kamto announced a general protest to call for the departure of President Biya.

In a recent communication, Paul Atanga Nji the Minister of Territorial Administration also warned “unscrupulous politicians in search of a hypothetical notoriety, against any agenda aimed at disturbing the peace of Cameroonians, before, during and after the election of regional councillors“.

“All troublemakers, whoever they are will be accountable for their actions before the courts,” Paul Atanga Nji added.

The main opposition leader of Cameroon, Maurice Kamto, called for a general mobilization on September 22 to push for the departure of the president, Paul Biya, a day after he approved December 6 as the date for the holding of the first regional elections in the country.

Kamto’s Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (CRM) has pointed out that the protests have been called at the national level, after the opposition warned against the call for elections without a ceasefire in the Anglophone majority regions, the scene of a conflict for several years.

Thus, the spokesman for Kamto, Olivier Bibou Nissack, stressed that September 22 will be the day of the “revolution in Cameroon” Paul Biya must go, he added.

The date chosen coincides with the one that, three years ago, marked the beginning of peaceful demonstrations in the two regions with an English-speaking majority to demand reforms in the face of what the population denounced as a situation of discrimination in the country.

By Rita Akana and Fon Lawrence

12, September 2020

US: Officials warn of ‘mass fatalities’ in sprawling wildfires ⁰

US officials warned Friday of potential “mass” fatalities as more than 20,000 firefighters from across the country battled sprawling deadly wildfires up and down the West Coast.

A prediction of cooler weather offered some hope of respite in coming days, but the true scale of the destruction from dozens of massive blazes in California, Oregon and Washington states remained hard to gauge.

There were 16 deaths confirmed this week, with wide stretches of land still cut off by flames.

“We’re preparing for a mass fatality incident based on what we know and the number of structures that have been lost,” warned Andrew Phelps, director of the office of emergency management in Oregon on Friday.

Oregon defines “mass fatality incident” as one that causes death and suffering which cannot be met by usual individual or community resources, according to the Washington Post.

“We anticipate that number (of deaths) may potentially go up as we get back into areas that have been ravaged by flame and obviously, smoke begins to clear,” warned California governor Gavin Newsom, as he visited a scorched forest near the raging North Complex Fire.

Ten people have been confirmed dead from that blaze in Butte County, which was driven at unprecedented pace toward the city of Oroville earlier in the week by strong, dry winds and soaring temperatures.

But Newsom said the weather “is beginning to cooperate,” with winds settling down and some rain forecast.

In neighboring Oregon, where one million acres (400,000 hectares) have burned and three people are reported dead with dozens still unaccounted for, governor Kate Brown also expressed hope a corner had been turned.

More than 40,000 Oregonians have fled their homes so far, with around half a million under evacuation warnings, Brown told a press conference—clarifying previous higher figures given by state officials.

“The weather system fueling these fires over the past few days has finally broken down,” she said.

“We anticipate cooler air and moisture coming in the next few days, which is really good news.”

Dozens of people remained missing in connection with the fires, Brown said.

Even as the weather forecast offered hope, Newsom painted a grim picture of California as the canary in the climate-change coal mine.

“I’m a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue,” he said in televised comments as he toured the damage. “This is a climate damn emergency. This is real, and it’s happening.

“This is the perfect storm.”

He added: “California, folks, is America fast-forward. What we’re experiencing right here is coming to communities all across the United States of America unless we get our act together on climate change, unless we disabuse ourselves of all the BS that’s been spewed by a very small group of people.”

‘Complete loss’

The August Complex Fire this week became by far the biggest recorded blaze in Californian history, ripping through 746,000 acres of dry vegetation in the state’s north, as multiple fires combined.

But it is just one of around 100 large fires on the West Coast, and other rapidly growing blazes closer to populated areas have proven deadlier.

“We are at a complete loss for words right now,” Bobbie Zedaker told the San Francisco Chronicle, after DNA tests proved her missing 16-year-old nephew was among those killed by the North Complex Fire.

Two more people were killed near the rural community of Happy Camp, a Cal Fire spokeswoman told AFP Friday.

But in a mountainous region of central California, close to where the Creek Fire is burning, some members of an indigenous community refused to leave their homes despite evacuation orders.

“I don’t feel it’s going to come this way,” said James Hancock, 52, whose home on the Cold Springs Rancheria Indian Reservation currently has no light, electricity or water.

Huge wildfires are becoming more common, with the World Meteorological Organization saying the five years to 2019 was unprecedented for fires, especially in Europe and North America.

Climate change amplifies droughts which dry out regions, creating ideal conditions for wildfires to spread out of control and inflict huge material and environmental damage.

California has already seen more than 3.1 million acres burn this year—an annual record, approximately the size of Connecticut—with nearly four months of fire season still to come.

Source: AFP

12, September 2020

Amnesty calls on Nigeria to disclose findings of official probe into rights abuses ⁰

Amnesty International has called on Nigeria to disclose the findings of a probe that was ordered by the government three years ago into rights abuses committed by security forces.

Following reports made by Amnesty and other rights groups that security forces have been responsible for hundreds of serious human rights violations, including extra-judicial killings, rape, torture, and enforced disappearances, the then-Acting President Yemi Osinbajo set up the Presidential Investigative Panel to probe the abuses in 2017. Osinbajo served as acting president while President Muhammadu Buhari was on a medical trip.

The panel’s report was submitted a year later, but it has never been made public, in a move condemned by Amnesty as “a gross display of contempt for victims.”

“Victims and the larger public in Nigeria deserve to see and scrutinize the findings,” Osai Ojigho, the Nigeria director of Amnesty, said in a statement on Friday.

“We are calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to fulfill the promise he made in 2015 to end impunity by immediately releasing the report,” he added.

Amnesty said it had attended the public hearings of the panel, which were held in several cities in Nigeria, and had made presentations.

The rights organization has blamed the security forces for the extra-judicial executions of 350 Shia Muslims in 2015 and 150 supporters of a separatist group the following year.

In December 2015, reports said soldiers opened fire on Shia Muslims attending a ceremony in a religious center in Zaria. A number of Muslims were killed there. Following the incident, Nigerian forces raided the house of Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), and arrested him.

During the brutal arrest, Zakzaky was beaten and lost vision in his left eye. His wife sustained serious wounds, and more than 300 of his followers were killed by the government forces in what became known as the Zaria Massacre.

The Nigerian government also banned the IMN, whose members regularly take to the streets of the capital, Abuja, to call for the release of their leader, Zakzaky.

Source: Presstv