Headline News

4, March 2018

Italians casting ballots in general elections ⁰

Italians are taking to the polls to cast their ballots in general elections that would determine the makeup of the country’s parliament and its next government.

Polling stations opened at 07:00 local time (0600 GMT) and will close at 23:00 (2200 GMT) on Sunday, with more than 30 million people eligible to vote.

The voters will choose members of both chambers of the parliament, including 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 members of the Senate.

People prepare ballots and voting-related materials at a polling station in downtown Rome, Italy, March 3, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement, the ruling Democratic Party, and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition Forza Italia (Go Italy) are the main rivals in the Sunday general elections.

The 81-year-old ex-PM cannot hold public office due to a tax fraud conviction but has allied himself with the anti-immigrant League Party to be able to compete in the race.

Under a new law passed last year, roughly a third of the seats are to be selected by the direct “first-past-the-post” system, with the remainder to be selected by proportional outcomes divided among allied parties and coalitions.

Each party would need at least 40 percent of the votes to command an overall majority of the seats in both chambers of the parliament.

Opinion polls have indicated that Berlusconi’s coalition is in the lead but will not win an outright majority, and Five Star has been widely projected by pollsters to emerge as the single biggest party. The ruling center-left Democratic Party, led by former prime minister Matteo Renzi, is predicted to finish in third place.

Head of the center-right party Forza Italia (Go Italy) Silvio Berlusconi (C) poses for pictures with supporters, outside the San Severo Chapel, during his tour in downtown Naples, on March 3, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The general elections are held amid concerns over immigration and the economy.

The International Organization for Migration (IMO) says more than 600,000 refugees and asylum seekers have made perilous journeys from Libya across the Mediterranean to reach Italy since 2013. The huge influx of refugees has worried many Italians and politicians, triggering violent clashes between far-right supporters and anti-fascist protesters.

Italy’s economy index is almost six percent lower than a decade ago, and some 18 million people are at risk of poverty, with unemployment standing at 11 percent.

Experts and analysts have expressed optimism that the Sunday general elections under the new system will pave the way for reforms to create an economy boost and a hike in the employment rate in the European country.

The official results of the elections are expected to be released in the early hours of Monday.

Source: Presstv

3, March 2018

Stephane Mbia leaves China’s Hebei China by mutual consent ⁰

Cameroon international midfielder Stephane Mbia has left Chinese club Hebei China Fortune by “mutual consent”. Mbia, 31, joined the Langfang outfit on a three-year deal from Turkish club Trabzonspor in January 2016.

“After two seasons, Hebei China Fortune and I have decided to end our collaboration by mutual consent. I would like to thank the club for this fantastic experience,” Mbia explained on social media.

“I wish the club and fans all the best for the 2018 season,” he added. He made 41 appearances for Hebei China Fortune scoring ten goals.

Mbia, who can play in defence or midfield, represented his country at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. He started his career at French club Rennes in 2004 before joining Marseille in July 2009.

He spent three seasons on France’s south coast winning a league and three cup titles before switching to English side Queens Park Rangers in August 2012.

The former Cameroon captain went on to make 32 appearances for the London club, 24 of those coming as the club were relegated from the Premier League in the 2012/13 season.

A loan spell at Spanish club Sevilla resulted in successive Uefa Europe League titles before the move to Turkey in the summer of 2015.

Mbia played for Cameroon at youth level before making his full debut for the Indomitable Lions in 2005. Capped 67 times, scoring five goals, he represented Cameroon at three Africa Cup of Nations tournaments.

Source: BBC Sports

3, March 2018

French Cameroun: Paul Atanga Nji to oversee the genocide in Southern Cameroons ⁰

Cameroon Concord News holds the considered opinion that the appointment of Paul Atanga Nji by the ailing and demented demonic dictator Paul Biya of neighbouring French Cameroun as his Minister of territorial administration is one step further in fine-tuning his genocidal war strategy against Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia. The appointment of Atanga Nji is aimed at maximizing the ongoing extermination of the Southern Cameroons ’civilian population. Cameroon Concord News can confidently state that Paul Biya by the appointment intended to send mixed signals and to confuse and confound.

He intended to deflate criticisms that he has never appointed Southern Cameroonians to a key ministry of state sovereignty. With that, he hoped to hoodwink slave status Southern Cameroonians at the marginal fringes of the CPDM crime syndicate to believe that at long last he has rehabilitated his colonized Southern Cameroons slaves who have been agitating and clamouring for rehabilitation, recognition and a place on the master’s table.

In the coming days, motions of support will be sent by paid agents and collaborators from supposed Fons, Chiefs and elites from the Northern Zone and South West Zones of Ambazonia. So-called elite associations will join in praising and calling on the 86 years old demented Paul Biya to decree unto himself eternal life and eternal presidency. Cameroon Concord News Group invites these categories of slave status worshippers to be extremely cautious of the harm their gullibility may bring to the endangered people of the Southern Cameroons and themselves. Atanga Nji’s mission is to oversee the genocide machinery of death that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ambazonia civilians. Any one cheering his appointment and sending motions of support to the murderer Paul Biya is cheering the genocide which he is appointed to oversee its implementation.

Paul Biya removed Rene Sadi who has until now overseen the genocide of Ambazonia, the abduction of the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and members of the interim government in Abuja Nigeria and the terrorization of Southern Cameroon and replaced him with the traitor Atanga Nji his Secretary of his National Security Council. Paul Biya intended to distance one of his potential heirs apparent from these crimes from near Paul Biya and place the responsibility for the crimes on Atanga Nji. Paul Biya will command the execution of the crimes through the remote control of Rene Sadi who by him, will through Paul Atanga Nji coordinate the genocide and crimes against humanity. The criminal responsibility will fully fall on a ruthless, robot and nitwit Atanga Nji. Any Ambazonian celebrating this appointment and the appointment of other Southern Cameroonians into the government of an alien enemy and country that is slaughtering armless civilians, torching civilian settlements, raping students and women, looting our economy and terrorizing the citizenry, qualifies to be an enemy of the Ambazonia people.

Cameroon Concord News reminds Ambazonians that the network of terror which French Cameroun used to oversee the colonization of the Southern Cameroons/ Ambazonia over the past fifty-six years was placed under the superintendence of the Minister of territorial administration. The Minister of territorial administration oversees elections rigging, enforcement of curfews and states of emergency, abduction and disappearance of persons and enforces all repressive legislation. Paul Atanga Nji like Nalova Lyonga supervised or ordered the massacre of civilians and students. Their appointment is a reward for the murder of innocent persons which will haunt their consciences for ever if at all their consciences are alive. The appointments have a higher purpose of rewarding murder, treachery and criminality. In effect, it is a reward for impunity.

Paul Atanga Nji, has always occupied a place of honour in Paul Biya’s crime laboratory. He was always his cherished hitman. He is an old hand in the job which he is appointed to do in Paul Biya’s crime syndicate. He operated from the shadows and was a key player in the abduction of the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia in Nigeria, members of his interim government as well as the abduction of Captain Guerandi Mbaya a former French Cameroun army captain who along with Isa Tchiroma and others took part in a failed coup in French Cameroun.

Paul Atanga Nji also has a mandate of a political nature. He is to make sure that elections that have been banned in the territory of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia take place on the blood of hundreds of thousands. He has a mandate to make sure that divisional officers use every available force at their disposal to make sure the supposed opposition candidates are prevented from holding campaign meetings. They must make sure the elections are rigged in favour of Paul Biya and the CPDM crime syndicate. The appointment of a man from the crime underground to oversee a genocide and the rigging machinery makes the months ahead potentially dangerous. Cameroon Concord News calls on citizens of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to reject these appointments and to concentrate on contributing to the interim government to to expel the enemy from our territory.

Cameroon Concord News recalls the crimes that French Cameroun has committed against us for the past fifty-six years supervised by its so-called Minister of territorial administration. It is the Minister of territorial administration of French Cameroun who directly administered the Southern Cameroons from when it was annexed and renamed West Cameroon through a Federal Inspector of Administration, criminally disregarding our Prime Minister and our state institutions. The so-called Federal Inspector of Administration oversaw the effective annexation and dismantling of the Southern Cameroons state institutions through a reign of terror, abductions, disappearances, corruption, and engineered treachery by some of our own leaders. French Cameroun relies on French Cameroun divisional officers under the control of the Minister of territorial administration to terrorize the colonized territory of the Southern Cameroons and supervise the looting and pillage of its natural resources for the benefit of French Cameroun France colonial master and the crime syndicate in power in the French vassal state.

Cameroon Concord News Group identifies the following among many instruments of state terror that Paul Atanga Nji like his French Cameroun’s counterparts will use to humiliate Southern Cameroonians: The institution of a permanent state of emergency in the territory of Ambazonia; press censorship, calle calle, rape, torture, cultural genocide, humiliation, land grab, murder, corruption, spying, assimilation, and destruction of all symbols of Southern Cameroons national and cultural identity.

Cameroon Concord News Group holds the opinion that at this moment when the Southern Cameroons revolution and resistance to the reign of terror has forced the colonial strangulation of the Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia to be collapsing on its own weight, all citizens of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia must stand resolutely behind the interim government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to free our land from external aggression and genocide, and our President, members of the interim government and all Ambazonians under colonial detention. Only fools cheer their own genocide. As our ongoing revolution signifies, Ambazonians are not fools and will not cheer the death machinery put in place by French Cameroun and its criminal appointees or even condone them. Cameroon Concord News therefore strongly holds that cheering the appointments of renegades, traitors and enemy collaborators to support the enemy genocide war effort against our own people and our territory must be considered an act of treachery and thus banned from the territory of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

To this I put my name

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

3, March 2018

Fresh wave of ethnic violence kills 49 in Congo-Kinshasa ⁰

A fresh flare-up of ethnic violence has claimed the lives of at least 49 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri province.

The murders took place overnight in the village of Maze, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Bunia, the capital of the northeastern province of Ituri, which has been wracked by conflict between the Hema and Lendu communities, the government said on Friday.

Alfred Ndrabu Buju from international Catholic charity Caritas said, “We have counted 49 bodies and are still searching for other bodies.”

“A child was admitted this morning in Drodro general hospital, with an arrow in his head,” Buju added.

Interior Minister Henri Mova earlier said 33 were killed in the unrest.

“The provincial governor is on his way to the site of the killings,” Mova said.

Witnesses said the assailants were members of the Lendu community.

“The attackers went into the village and committed a real massacre,” said local activist Banza Charite.

More than 100 people have been killed since the violence erupted in Ituri in mid-December. The unrest has also forced 200,000 people to flee their homes.

More than 28,000 of the displaced have crossed the border into Uganda in recent weeks, according to UN figures, most of them women and children, reporting horrific stories of violence.

Tensions between the Hema cattle herders and Lendu farmers have largely laid dormant since a 1998-2003 war, which claimed the lives of thousands, but have flared again in recent months because of disputes over land.

The United Nations said earlier this year it would seek more than $1.5 billion to respond to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, warning the violence-torn country was at a “breaking point.”

Source: Presstv

3, March 2018

Nigeria: Mass abduction in Dapchi dents Buhari’s security record ⁰

When President Muhammadu Buhari took office three years ago, eradicating Boko Haram militants and rescuing the hundreds of women and children they held captive was one of the main pledges in his inaugural address.

Another mass abduction of schoolgirls in the town of Dapchi has exposed how little progress has been made. It also shows that security is a major weakness for the former military ruler with less than a year to go before elections.

“The government is not doing sufficiently well as it relates to security because if they are, an experience like that of Chibok that happened four years ago, we had four years to prevent the recurrence of Chibok. Yet four years after we still have Dapchi, and not just that one or two girls or five girls, over a hundred girls were taken in one night.” Bukky Shonibare, a member of the Bring Back Our Girls Group

The kidnap of the 110 girls, mostly aged 11-19, almost two weeks ago bears similarities to Boko Haram’s 2014 abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from Chibok.

“I voted for Buhari for change, but sincerely right now, the way things are, we are going backward and not forward. Before I used to come out in confidence, but now I come out in shame. If we find good change, I want Buhari but with the way things are, if it continues like this, I will not vote for Buhari.” Idris Mohammed, a generator repairer.

Buhari has declared the Dapchi abduction a “national disaster”.

Source: Reuters

3, March 2018

Biya regime imposes curfew in the Buea Province amid Anglophone crisis ⁰

The SouthWest region of Cameroon has imposed a month-long curfew on five out of six divisions / departments according to a release from the office of the governor.

The March 1, 2018 document said the move was important given the exigencies of security, the preservation of peace and the maintenance of law and order.

The affected divisions are Manyu, Meme, Ndian, Lebialem and Kupe-Muanenguba. The only division not under the order is Fako.

The orders were put into four articles as follows:

That the movement of commercial vehicles and private cars shall, with effect from the date of signature of this order, be prohibited throughout Divisions – South West region from 7 pm in the evening to 6 am in the morning for a period of thirty (30) days renewable.

That this prohibition shall not be applicable o Ambulances, vehicles of Administrative Authorities and/or Officials of the Forces of the Law and Order carrying out official duties.

That Senior Divisional Officer, Regional Heads of Defense and Security Forces, Divisional Officers a,d Mayors of the Administrative Units cited above shall be charged, each in their sphere of competence with ensuring the implementation of this order.

That this order shall be registered and communicated where need be. It was copied to the necessary agencies and signed off by the governor in the region’s capital, Buea.

The curfew order comes barely a week after a similar one was imposed on adjoining North West region. The two – known as the ‘Anglophone regions’ are at the heart of a secessionist attempt to break off from French – majority Cameroon.

Guerilla style attacks by separatists elements have claimed the lives of about twenty-four security officials. People in the region have also fled in their thousands into Nigeria for fear of reprisal attacks from the army.

Source: Africa News

3, March 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Two Anglophones get top positions in Biya cabinet reshuffle ⁰

Two politicians from Anglophone Cameroon have been handed top cabinet positions in a government reshuffle on Friday evening.

Dr. Nalova Lyonga was named Minister of Secondary Education whiles Atanga Nji Paul was appointed Minister of Territorial Administration which translates to the Interior Ministry portfolio.

The Prime Minister Philemon Yang and Information Minister Issa Bakary Tchiroma were among those that maintained their positions. Local media portals reported about five big dismissals.

As per the cabinet reorganization orders, President Paul Biya also created a new ministry for Decentralization and Local Government. It is to be headed by one Elanga Obam George.

Source: African News

2, March 2018

Cabinet Reshuffle: Change without change ⁰

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, on Friday, March 2, 2018, announced his “new cabinet” which many analysts said was long overdue given the political issues that have plagued the country for more than fifteen months.

The cabinet, which includes Anglophones such as Mr.Atanga Nji, Minister of Territorial Administration, and Ms. Nalova Lyonga, Minister of Secondary Education, is currently the subject of many discussions across the country and among the country’s Diaspora.

Speaking to ordinary Cameroonians, the Cameroon Concord News Group gathered that Mr. Biya’s cabinet reshuffle is actually change without change as he has simply reshuffled his card.

A Southern Cameroonian fighter who called the Cameroon Concord News Group’s global headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, shortly after the “pseudo reshuffle” said that Mr. Biya’s false steps would continue to motivate them.

“We will continue to strike fear in the government’s mind until we are taken seriously. I have just listened to the cabinet reshuffle, but it makes no sense to me. Our goal is to restore our independence and we will achieve that some day. The government is trembling. Last week, we conducted a successful operation in Muyenge in the South West Region and after we had left, the government rolled out its old equipment to come and stop us from advancing. Our objective is to head to Buea to wreak havoc. We need to chase the noisy governor out of Buea. He has to return to his own part of the country. This cabinet reshuffle tells me that Anglophones do not count and will never count in Cameroon. If Atanga Nji and Nalova Lyonga are considered as the best among us, then we are doomed.”

According to a Southern Cameroonian living in North America, it is clear that Mr. Biya is not taking Southern Cameroonians seriously despite the crisis which is tearing the country apart.

The Southern Cameroonian, who elected anonymity, said that “the fighting must continue. Mr. Biya is taking us for a ride. We cannot be complaining about a system that has marginalized us for decades and he is appointing the same people who have been responsible for the Southern Cameroons crisis.”

“It is unbelievable that he will be rewarding Atanga Nji who has been rejected by his people in the North West Region. Atanga Nji, an ex-convict, will find it hard to operate in the North West. We have rejected him and he should not deceive himself that he is representing anybody. He is surely representing Mr. Biya and his bunch of old people who are out of touch with the political reality in Southern Cameroons,” the Washington-based Southern Cameroonian said.

“Mr. Biya does not seem to understand what is happening in Cameroon. The Southern Cameroonians appointed do not represent anybody. This decision will not go down well with many Cameroonians, especially Southern Cameroonians, who have rejected the current political class. More people will still have to die for Mr. Biya to understand that his choices are not the best for this country,” he regretted

“How can Nalova Lyonga who caused Buea University students to be beaten and made to drink raw sewage be rewarded with a ministerial position? Does it imply Mr. Biya only likes people who work against their own people? I am really disappointed and I think the current crisis tearing the country apart will continue for a very long time,” he lamented.

According to another Southern Cameroonian living in West Africa who spoke with the Cameroon Concord News Group Chairman, it is obvious that “our country is in for tough times,” the vocal Cameroonian who has been a close observer of the country’s political scene said, adding that “our government does not understand that it is dealing with very angry citizens. Cameroon is a ticking time bomb and Mr. Biya’s action are only helping that bomb to go off when the right moment comes.”

“Cameroonians must rise up against this government that is making a mockery of them. How can we be complaining about bad governance and Mr. Biya is still appointing people who have been around for decades and have never really posted any impressive results?” he asked, stressing that “using the same people to run the country for a long time only creates the right conditions for inaction and laziness.”

“I thought Mr. Biya will bring into the government some members of the Anglophone Diaspora in a bid to appease the angry Diaspora that is doing everything to destabilize the country. If Mr. Biya does not reconcile with the Southern Cameroons Diaspora, he will be having lots of sleepless nights. The Southern Cameroons Diaspora is hell-bent on making its influence felt and over the last fifteen months, it has gone the extra mile of financing the purchase and shipment of weapons to Cameroon and these weapons are sending many young soldiers to an early grave,” he said.

“The Diaspora is a huge source of financing for the country’s development projects if the government partners with it. But if Mr. Biya and his collaborators continue to disrespect and ignore the Diaspora, then they have accepted to leave a life of instability for a long time.

As we speak, there are shipments of weapons heading to Cameroon and these weapons have been purchased by the Southern Cameroons Diasporaand some members of the Francophone Diaspora are already joining the struggle and are willing to make huge financial contributions,” the highly intellectual Cameroonian said.

“We cannot continue to take Mr. Biya’s mess. He has ruined the country and if care is not taken, he might take the country with him to the grave. Mr. Biya needs to be called to order and only a huge people power revolution can make him understand that he has taken the country down the wrong path. Our country has deteriorated so badly. We do not have good roads and our hospitals are not the best places for anybody who is critically sick. What type of country is this? Where on earth will some people be in the political arena for more than 40 years. Cameroonians have to come together to stop this bunch of old people who are destroying our country.If something is not down now, our country will go down the drain and future generations will have to pay a huge price,” he stressed.

Other observers have indicated that despite Mr. Biya’s gimmick, many Southern Cameroonians are still arguing that Southern Cameroonians will never be given any strategic positions in Cameroon. The finance, communication, foreign affairs, economy and planning as well as the defense portfolios are still being held by Francophones. Atanga Nji may be at the ministry of territorial administration, but that ministry has been sapped of its powers as election organization is now in the hands of ELECAM and decentralization is anything but serious. The presidency will continue to dictate to stooges like Atanga Nji and he will be used as a rubber stamp.

From an interview with Cameroonians on the streets, the Cameroon Concord News Group noticed that there was a lot of frustration. Jean-Philip Mboule, a street vendor in Yaounde, said that to be a member of government in Cameroon, you must be called Paul. He cited a few names like Paul Biya, Elung Paul, Paul Atanga Nji, Paul Motaze and Paul Tasong who are all members of the current government. For women, they must be called Pauline. That’s why Nalova Lyonga Pauline Egbe has made it into the cabinet. He joked that before long, all Cameroonians will be rebaptized and their baptismal name will surely be Paul or Pauline.

From every indication, Cameroon is moving toward more serious andtougher times. The change that a cabinet reshuffle is supposed to bring does not exist in Mr. Biya’s cabinet reshuffle that has offended instead of appeasing Cameroonians.

With Boko Haram maiming people in the North, Central African rebels kidnapping innocent people for ransom and Southern Cameroonians making the country ungovernable, Cameroon is sliding down a slippery slope. Mr. Biya has missed another opportunity to hold the country together. If he is alive and healthy, then he should know he has created a storm that might sweep him out of power sooner rather than later.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

2, March 2018

Gunmen attack army headquarters, French embassy in Burkina Faso ⁰

Nearly 30 people, including civilians and soldiers, have been killed when gunmen launched a coordinated attack in Burkina Faso’s capital, targeting the army headquarters and the French embassy.

Five assailants reportedly got out of a pick-up truck in the center of the capital Ouagadougou and opened fire on passersby before heading towards the French embassy on Friday morning. They then set fire to the car.

Meanwhile, a blast took place near the headquarters of the Burkinabe armed forces and the French cultural center, which are located around a kilometer (half a mile) from the area of the first assault that houses the embassies, the prime minister’s office and the United Nations offices, witnesses said.

“I saw people with sacks on their backs attack the guard. Then I heard the explosion. I saw soldiers flee the army headquarters building running,” witness Kader Sanou said. The explosion hit the army compound, setting the building on fire.

Men escape from Burkina Faso’s army headquarters during an attack in the capital Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on March 2, 2018. (Photo by Reuters)

Media reports quoted three security sources, two in France and one in West Africa, as saying that at least 28 people lost their lives in the attack on the military headquarters.

Two of the sources said 28 people were killed and a third reported that “around 30” died in the attack in the capital.

Government spokesman Remi Dandjinou had earlier said the attackers killed five people and injured about 50 others during the attack on the military headquarters.

Speaking on state television, he added that two paramilitary gendarmes lost their lives while defending the French embassy.

According to the government, four gunmen were killed in the embassy attack and two in the second assault.

Burkina Faso’s government had said in a statement posted on the government’s Information Service website, “Special units of the defense and security forces have been deployed.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but previous assaults were conducted by allies of al-Qaeda in retaliation for the country’s participation in a regional fight against Takfiri militants.

Jean-Marc Châtaigner, France’s ambassador to West Africa’s Sahel region described the assault as a “terrorist attack.”

The attack was the third major attack in Ouagadougou in just over two years.

In August 2017, a terrorist attack on the upscale Turkish restaurant Aziz Istanbul in Ouagadougou killed 19 people, many of them children, and injured 21 others.

In January 2016, assailants launched an attack on a hotel also popular with foreigners and a café in the capital, killing at least 30 people from 18 different nationalities. The al-Qaeda Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world, shares a northern border with Mali, which has long been battling al-Qaeda.

French Special Forces have been present in Burkina Faso since 2010 on a declared mission to help regional governments in the Sahel tackle extremism, particularly in neighboring Mali.

France was a former colonial power in Africa, ruling over Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast as well as the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Morocco, and Algeria. Ghana was a former British colony.

Source: Presstv

2, March 2018

Cameroonian arrested in connection with murder of African priest in Berlin ⁰

A 26-year-old man from Cameroon has been arrested in connection with the crime

Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin paid tribute to Fr Alain-Florent Gandoulou, the head of the archdiocese’s French-speaking ministry, who was murdered in his office.

Archbishop Koch said Fr Gandoulou, born in the Republic of Congo, “applied himself with great engagement to his community, whose members come from every French-speaking country in the world.”

“His musical talent that he brought to Masses and presentations deeply affected the community,” said Archbishop Koch. “Fr Gandoulou was like a father to believers (and he) was also approachable in social matters.”

The archbishop said Fr Gandoulou was a dynamic catechist who promoted teaching and faith-building for people of all ages. In addition to his parish duties, since 2011, he worked as a counsellor at Berlin’s Sacred Heart Parish.

The archbishop said he would celebrate a special Mass on March 2 to pray for the priest and for his murderer. Afterwards, Fr Gandoulou’s remains will be returned to his hometown in the Archdiocese of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, for burial.

Late on February 22, police responded to a call from witnesses reporting a loud argument. Police say Fr Gandoulou sustained fatal injuries from being beaten with objects and was stabbed in the head with an umbrella tip, according to Bild newspaper.

A 26-year-old man from Cameroon was arrested in connection with the crime. The suspect has since been detained in a psychiatric ward. Police have not released the suspect’s name, and no motive has been established.

Source: Catholic Herald