The continuing conflict and brutality in the NW and SW regions of Cameroon is causing huge unrest and loss of life. Torture, casualties and death are common amongst civilians, most of whom can only wish to bury their dead and hope for an end to the genocide that has engulfed these regions over the past six months, so as to give their children a reason to live.

Why people have left their homes:

* From fear of stray bullets, and fear of being shot and killed in cross-fire between warring parties, most especially the government forces who may not make a clear distinction between innocent civilians and secessionist fighters (‘Amba Boys’).

* Many homes have been torched with fire, which has become a common instrument of oppression, with many people shot dead on sight.

* Aggressive military behaviour and shock from the deafening sound of artillery being fired indiscriminately into civilian houses.

* The brutality inflicted by soldiers upon civilians, if they should find people in areas where gunshots are being fired by separatists.

* Frequent summary execution of detainees by the military, e.g., as witnessed in Kumbo, Tadu, Melim, Jakiri.

* Looting and pillage of shops and provision stores by government forces in places such as Shisong and Mbuluf, among others.

* Arrest and torture of government loyalists by secessionists who demand ransoms as conditio sine qua non [i.e., an essential condition] for release.

People living close to barricades and trenches on roads run for dear life because, if the military should meet them, they pay with torture, arrest and even death. They are considered to be accomplices of the Amba Boys.

Many schools, businesses, and houses lie derelict, covered by grass and weeds.

* People along the major roads in the conflict zones are victims of indiscriminate shooting from troubled soldiers returning from the battlefield.

* Advice from the separatists for people to relocate from conflict zone so as not to become victims of cross fire, as happened , for example, in February at Ndzenwai in Shisong’s Bui Division, near SAC Junction.

* Areas frequented by secessionists are often targets for the military who patrol these places at night.

* People caught in cross-fire are often considered to be separatist sympathisers and therefore become potential targets for the military to intimidate, shoot and kill and meet out brutality of the highest order.

* Destruction of food crops by government forces applying a scorched earth policy.

* The gruesome murdering of innocent civilians on the grounds that they do not disclose the hide-outs of separatists.

* Kidnappings and ransom demands to scare civilians across the political divide.

* Some people have left their homes for the bush to escape brutality from both sides on the grounds that they are selling out.

* There is insecurity as government structures have collapsed.

* All means of communication have been hampered and ruptured.

* There is a severe lull in economic activity because of the conflict.

* Some parents have taken their children to other areas to prevent them from joining the separatist militia and armed gangs.

Many are ill from the shock of deafening sounds of gunfire; others, wounded by bullets, die at home because they cannot meet hospital bills or because they lack the means to reach treatment centres, while still others decide to stay back and let fate take its course.

Given that many were forced to abandon non-harvested crops on their farms, provision of food has become an uphill task everywhere and many are starving. Normal activities are at a standstill, even in major towns such as Kumbo, where 380 civilians were killed and more than 700 homes torched from September 2018 to March 2019

Citizens in the restive anglophone regions of Cameroon are regarded as potential terrorists and, according to official thinking, lack concern for IDPs from the government side. This is the reason why the elderly, the sick and the handicapped are often burned in their houses when the military attack a locality such as Mah or Meluf. Most of the IDPs in the forests and the bush live in make-shift huts and houses constructed with salvaged materials and have no access to drinking water or sanitary products. Some are in villages, church houses, schools, health centres and community halls. Women and young people returning from farms are the target of soldiers who summarily execute them if they find them in a conflict zone such as Njavnyuy or Kitiwum.

Health Care: With scarce resources, no medical care is effective because of limited finance and there is no transport to ferry the sick to hospitals so that many die at home or on street corners. Due to the crisis, there is a dangerous precedent: the sick, the dying and the dead are moved to and from hospitals on wheelbarrows and stretchers. Most of the wounded are treated using crude medication or by traditional practitioners using unorthodox means.

Generally, the pain and misery are alarming. Some people die away from their locality and so are forced by circumstances to be buried where they lie by people of good will.

Women and Children: Women and children constitute the greater bulk of IDPs in anglophone Cameroon, above 70%. They are physically weaker and therefore vulnerable to physically challenging situations. With the school closure impasse, many girls have embraced prostitution and teenage pregnancy has become the order of the day. Many teenagers are pregnant and many of these are homeless. Children are the biggest victims in the crisis. Child soldiers are commonplace and are easily taken in by the separatists. Many in the separatist groups are youths in their teens. Some enlist to take revenge for the deaths of parents or relatives. Family ties are being loosened. The young and able-bodied men are enlisted into the fighting forces where they are taken care of, or can forcibly take care of themselves. The women and children are left to fend for themselves! Some women are forced to use unorthodox means to get bread and shelter for themselves and for their children. The young men are either forced by their families or by militias to join the fighters in order to “defend” their families from the oppressors. The situation is growing worse by the hour, as towns and villages are increasingly depopulated each day.

GENERAL EFFECTS

* Schools have been shut down.

* Many people remained locked up in jails in unknown locations.

* Salaries of people working with faith communities and private schools have remained unpaid since the end of January 2017.

* Spying networks rooted on bribery and corruption, have taken the cue to cause abductions and disappearances.

* Businesses dependent on the Internet have crumbled away in the North West and South West Regions, rendering many unemployed.

* Killings due to conflict rise on a daily basis.

* Kumbo, the second-largest city in the North West Region, has been nearly emptied of people due to violence, as have many smaller centres.

Richard Moncrieff the Program Director for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group has noted this when he says “Displacement is a very good indicator of trouble – people are leaving these areas because there is a lot of violence.”

International pressure, outspoken and clear, is needed to end human rights abuses, to create credible and effective avenues to hold those responsible to account, and to encourage the Cameroonian government to work towards peace.

Source: Independent Catholic News

Cameroonian authorities should immediately release without charge pidgin news anchor Samuel Wazizi, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police arrested Wazizi 11 days ago and handed him over to the military, which has since held him without access to his lawyer or family in Buea, the capital of the country’s English-speaking Southwest region, according to his lawyer and local news reports.

Wazizi, popularly known as “Halla Ya Matta,” works for the Buea-based independent station Chillen Muzik and Television (CMTV); he was arrested on August 2 and was initially held at the Muea police station, according to his lawyer, Barrister Lyonga Edward Ewule, and local news reports.

According to a statement posted on CMTV’s Facebook page on August 6, Wazizi was picked up at 11:00 a.m. August 2 by Muea police who “claimed that he was being invited by their boss to get information about a certain ‘pidgin news.’” CPJ could not confirm the exact location of his arrest in Muea.

According to the CMTV statement, the police said Wazizi was detained in connection “to the Anglophone armed conflict of which investigation is still going,” and the police refused to allow his colleagues to see him in detention.

The conflict between security forces and separatist fighters seeking a breakaway nation called Ambazonia in the two English-speaking regions in the west of the country has escalated over the past year, according to news reports.

Ewule told CPJ that Wazizi was accused of “collaborating with separatists” and “spreading separatist information,” but has not been formally charged. Ewule said a statement was taken without the presence of a lawyer, although he was later given access to his client, who was also able to see his family while in police custody. Ewule said his client’s phone was searched and, according to the police, “separatist messages” were found. However, “having such information is part of his journalism job,” said the lawyer.

“Authorities must stop trying to force journalists like Samuel Wazizi to toe the government line about the separatist conflict in Cameroon by harassing and intimidating them through illegal detentions and flagrant violations of the rule of law,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ Africa program coordinator. “The fact that Wazizi is being detained by the military, which has no jurisdiction to investigate terrorism-related charges, also raises serious questions about due process and the journalist’s safety. He must be released immediately with no condition.”

Wazizi was denied bail because police said his case related to potential charges under the anti-terrorism law, Ewule told CPJ. He was informed on August 6 that Wazizi would be handed over to the judicial police, the competent authority to investigate, but instead his client was transferred the next day to the military’s 21st Motorized Infantry Battalion in Buea, Ewule said. Wazizi has since been held without access to a lawyer or family, Ewule told CPJ.

Ewule told CPJ that today he filed a habeas corpus application in the Fako Division of the High Court in Buea to force authorities to either produce Wazizi in court and justify his detention, or order the journalist’s release.

In the application, which was reviewed by CPJ, Ewule said Wazizi had denied all the allegations and “believed he was being detained in connection with his critical views he expressed during the pidgin English news program on CMTV which is strictly connected to the practiceof his profession as a journalist, and this I strongly believe as a fact.”

CPJ contacted Charles Manda, an adviser to Communication Minister Rene Sadi, on his cellphone for comment, but the line was poor. CPJ followed up via messaging app and an email to the address provided by Manda, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Police spokeswoman Joyce Ndgem told CPJ she did not know the case and then rejected the call when CPJ called back. In response to WhatsApp messages, Ndgem told CPJ that if it had a correspondent in Cameroon, it should ask that person to see her instead.

U.S.-Congress funded Voice of America reported today that Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji said Cameroon’s journalists “have one main objective, just to sabotage government action, to promote secessionist tendencies.” He added, “Those who do not want to respect the laws will be booked as being recalcitrant and will be treated as such.”

Cameroon is the third worst jailer of journalists in Africa, after Egypt and Eritrea, with at least seven journalists behind bars for their work on December 1, 2018, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. CPJ published a special report in 2017 about Cameroon’s abuse of overly broad anti-terror legislation to crack down on critical reporting and to stifle dissent.

Culled from Committee to Protect Journalists

Cameroon has threatened all journalists who it says are refusing to be patriotic, after TV reporter Samuel Wazizi was arrested for allegedly supporting separatist fighters in Cameroon’s English-speaking north, west, and southwest regions. The journalists say it is becoming impossible for them to practice their profession, as they face pressure from both separatist fighters and the government.

Paul Atanga Nji, territorial administration minister, says Cameroon’s journalists are becoming highly unpatriotic.

“They have one main objective, just to sabotage government action, to promote secessionist tendencies,” said Nji. “I urge them to be responsible. Those who do not want to respect the laws will be booked as being recalcitrant and will be treated as such.”

Atanga Nji also says most journalists support the opposition and believe that President Paul Biya was not the true winner of the October 2018 presidential election.

Macmillan Ambe, president of the Cameroon Association of English Speaking Journalists, CAMASEJ, says the threat from the government is one of many that journalists have faced since the separatist crisis began in 2016.

He says journalists should be given the freedom they need to do their work.

“When you get the minister of territorial administration giving lessons to journalists on how to report, it just adds to some of the difficulties we are already facing,” said Ambe. “We are subjected to torture, be it physical or psychological. We have also had cases of several journalists who are being called up for questioning, so it becomes very difficult for us to operate.”

Ambe was abducted by separatist fighters in the city of Bamenda last February after he criticized their call for families not to send their children to school.

More recent threats came after Samuel Waziz, an announcer at Chillen Music Television who has hosted shows critical of the government, was arrested by the military. His lawyers said he was accused of hosting separatist fighters in his farm, an allegation he dismissed.

Journalist Promise Akanteh of Royal FM, a radio station in Yaounde who also hosts critical programs, says she has been threatened several times within the past two weeks.

“I have had several phone calls threatening me. Do you know that your daughter still needs you? I said, ‘yes, sir.'” So be careful with what you say on air.  I do not know who was calling,” said Akanteh. “The person threatens me and says be careful with what you say on air. I am telling you this, another person will not be this nice to you.”

The separatists launched their fight in 2017, after English-speakers protested political and economic discrimination in the majority French-speaking country. The government reacted with a crackdown in November 2017 and since then, 2,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

The Vice President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Dabney Yerima has issued a warning to the French Cameroun government, saying that the Biya regime will regret invading British Southern Cameroons.

Dabney Yerima who spoke to our correspondent in Germany during a recent visit to Thuringen said soon and very soon, there will be a response to every French Cameroun attack in Southern Cameroons.

Last week, French Cameroun security forces shot and killed several Southern Cameroons detainees who were protesting against the deplorable conditions in French Cameroun jails.

The Ambazonia Interim Government was formed following French Cameroun regime’s declaration of war against the people of Southern Cameroons.  Since then, the Interim Government has helped to organize Ambazonia Self-Defense Forces to resist the French Cameroun genocidal campaign in Southern Cameroons.

The Ambazonian Interim Government has also been playing a significant role in defending the thousands of Southern Cameroonians including its leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe who are currently being held in French Cameroun prisons.

Ever since the war started three years ago following the declaration of Southern Cameroons independence by President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé have regularly violated Ambazonia sovereignty killings more than 4000 people including women and children.

Two years ago, a senior French speaking Cameroon government official described Southern Cameroonians as two cubes of sugar representing nothing in La Republique du Cameroun.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai